


The Scars We Choose

by EndlessCharade, ShamanicShaymin



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AFAB Chara (Undertale), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Anxiety Disorder, Bullying, Depression, Homelessness, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Punk Rock, Rock and Roll, Sex Addiction, Slow Burn, Soft Chara (Undertale), Teenage Asriel Dreemurr, Teenage Chara (Undertale), Teenage Drama, Teenage Frisk (Undertale), Undertale Monsters on the Surface
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:14:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 60,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndlessCharade/pseuds/EndlessCharade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamanicShaymin/pseuds/ShamanicShaymin
Summary: When Asriel Dreemurr, a sixteen-year-old high school student, attends a rock concert the day before the beginning of his sophomore year of high school, he had no idea that his life was about to change. There, he meets Chara, a wild and willful human who will show him sides of the world that he never could have imagined. Together, Asriel and Chara will discover that living is more than just existing, that love can be both happiness and pain in equal measure, and that as long as they are breathing, there is still hope for something better.And at the end of it all, sometimes, the best that we can do is ensure that if life is going to leave scars on us, they will be the scars that we choose to let it leave.





	1. Hand in Hand with the Damned

**Author's Note:**

> Now, before you get into the story, there are a couple things to understand. 
> 
> First of all, this is an AU, an Elseworlds, or whatever else you want to call it. The characters are influenced by their canon counterparts, but they are not their canon counterparts. Obviously, the ones that are dead in canon are very not dead here, and their behaviors are extrapolated into what I would imagine they would turn out like if they had the opportunity to grow up.
> 
> Second, in this world, the war between humans and monsters never happened. There is no underground. There is no gate. And in fact there is very little to no actual magic power anywhere. I wanted this story to be grounded in reality, so aside from the fact that monsters exist, there isn’t anything that makes them any different than humans, other than appearance and mannerisms and cultures and traditions.
> 
> That’s all you really need to know going in. So, please, take this story for what it is, and I hope that you get even a fraction out of it what I have put into it.
> 
> Here are some soundtrack suggestions, as music was very instrumental (ha-ha) to this thing even existing at all:
> 
> Muse - Dead Inside  
> Joan Jett - Bad Reputation  
> New Years Day - Kill or Be Killed  
> Famous Last Words - The Relentless  
> A Skylit Drive - Save Me Tragedy  
> Alesana - Hand in Hand with the Damned

_~~~_

_I don't trust myself_

_I'm trapped drowning in despair_

_I'm poisonous._

_~~~_

FaceJournal profile on UnderNet:

Name: Asriel Dreemurr.

Age: Under.

Weight: Over.

Height: Conspicuously Visible.

Last Status Update:

"I really don't see why people consider it fun to go to a place where they willingly slam into each other. For fun. Oh well, I guess the music will be good and Undyne apparently gets something out of this. Maybe I will too. I kind of just want to vanish into a pile of ash and be reborn as a beautiful flower of ironic doom and despair. Can this just happen? Right now? I promise the ash won't get everywhere.  
  
Anyway Undyne is here now. I guess I'll find out why they call it 'thrash metal'."

_~~~ Asriel ~~~_

Asriel was silent and more than a little nervous. It was his last day of summer break before the beginning of the fall semester, and he was a furry bundle of anxious energy sitting in the passenger seat of his friend's car. He was excited, too, though. This was the first time in quite some time that Bone Dead Forever had come through town, and last time he was too young and too scared to go. This time, he wasn't too _young_ , though he still probably would have been too _scared_ if he didn't have someone badgering him to get out of the house.

Undyne wasn't going to let him miss this show, and he knew it. He also knew that she'd been concerned about his state of mind lately and had run the idea of bringing Asriel along to a pleasant social gathering by his mom. Of course, she'd left out the part where her idea of 'a pleasant social gathering' involved slamming against random strangers in a maelstrom of bodies jumping in rhythm to a post-hardcore metal band.

Asriel did have a great deal of confidence that no matter what was going on around him, Undyne wouldn't let him come to any _actual_ harm at least. She'd sort of set herself up as his protector as often as she could get away with it, which, given that she was a year older than him and in none of his classes, wasn't _very_ often. However, she did at least try to do things with him that would improve his mental state, and he really appreciated that even if it didn't always _work_. The current idea was at least not entirely misplaced. Asriel knew he'd been a shut-in all summer, and if there was anything in the universe that could break him out of the mental sludge he'd let himself sink into, it was music.

While he didn't exactly subscribe to Undyne's ideas of what a concert _should_ involve, Asriel was just excited enough about the prospect of standing in the back and observing that he agreed to go without quite telling his mom what they were going to be up to. Plus, he was agreeable enough to anything Undyne suggested and appreciated enough of the same music that she did that he had kind of become her de-facto concert buddy. He'd thrown on some of his usual attire which, this evening, consisted of faded black jeans and a large, black Pink Floyd _Dark Side of the Moon_ shirt that hugged his bulky frame a bit tighter than he'd ever liked it to and dashed out to the car when Undyne pulled up.

They parked and arrived at the door of the tiny venue just as the opening band was finishing up. Undyne's preference for skipping opening acts that she didn't care about usually annoyed Asriel, as he really liked to discover new music. This time, he hadn't been able to bring himself to care enough to insist that they get there early. This was another sign that he wasn't doing too well, and while he knew it on an intellectual level, he hadn't had any real reason to bother trying to do anything about it. It was why the sludge was so effective in trapping him. It was easier, after all, to just sink.

In the twenty-or-so minutes that the main act was setting up and doing sound check, Asriel scoped out his chosen viewing area. He had a number of criteria that he ran through in the few seconds it took him to scan the room. Good acoustics, of course, were a priority, and so was finding an area that wasn't immediately next to a speaker. Having one's eardrums blown out because of an overzealous sound guy might be, in Undyne's words, 'metal as fuck', but as a general rule he really enjoyed the idea of _not_ having to use a hearing aid when he was in his early to mid twenties.

Of course, living to his twenties assumed that he didn't just turn to dust and blow away like a fluffy white tumbleweed like he desperately wished he _could_. This brought him to his last two criteria for a good place to stand: being reasonably close to the exit and being mostly dark and unobtrusive. He had the perfect spot picked out when the first song started playing. This went pretty well for him for about three minutes, after which Undyne dashed every single one of his hopes and dreams of being more or less invisible

She draped a muscular blue arm over his shoulder and gestured to the crowd with her other hand. "Hey! Az! You wanna live a little?" Her voice was easy to hear over the noise, because her voice was easy to hear in any situation whatsoever. She was a very loud person and while Asriel firmly believed she had at least been introduced to the idea of vocal regulation on a _conceptual_ level, it was the practical applications of it that had thus far eluded her.

"What do you mean?" he asked, glancing around at the crowd as they started to jump and knock each other around a little. He knew what she meant, of course, he was just trying to figure out the right way to get out of it.

"You. Me. The pit. Gotta do it at least once, right?" she said. "Hey, it's part of the experience!" she added, emphasizing the crowd with an enthusiastic gesture once more. "Not front and center or anything, but around the sides? That should be okay?"

"Don't people get seriously _hurt_ in there?" he called out, not able to make his voice project as much as his friend ever could.

"What? Oh! I mean! That's why the outside! And besides, nobody ever _tries_ to hurt anyone more than they can handle!"

Asriel had his doubts, and as much as he wanted to just vanish, he wanted that experience to be painless on his part. He _really_ didn't want to get stomped on and arrive at his first day of school in a body cast, but then again, that was the sort of thing Undyne would probably be proud of him for. She'd likely roll him around and see how many signatures he could collect as badges of pride or something. He was silently considering the pros and cons of getting his horns torn off, when Undyne nudged him. "Hey. No pressure. And I'll be nearby, okay?"

Asriel sighed. Of course he was going to say yes, and honestly there really wasn't anyone better to get this experience with than Undyne. Everyone was scared of her, even as they seemed to have tons of fun thrashing around with her. So, he looked out in the crowd and said, "So I just go in there? Don't think too hard about it? Just… do it?"

"Yep! That's the only way to do it!" Undyne replied through a huge grin that showed off her sharp teeth.

That sounded logical enough to Asriel, or at least more logical than anything else he could think of at the moment. That wasn't saying a whole lot, but there was something about Undyne that made all of this seem okay. She had the sort of charisma that made people just _want_ to go along with what she was doing solely because she believed in it so hard. So, after a few calming breaths, Asriel just dove in before the next song could get up and going. He was honestly surprised when he wasn't immediately crushed by the surrounding crowd.

_I'm... I'm not dead. I can do this. I can do this!_

It was more than he thought it would be, even at the periphery of the pit. However, Asriel's stature meant that he could hold his own even if some people realized he didn't really have the experience to hold his own. And the other members of the audience weren't mean to him. He was on the outside, not in the center, so if he stumbled, they caught him, helping him stay standing in the mass of jumping and shoving bodies. Since he had actually jumped in _ahead_ of Undyne, he was separated from her fairly quickly. However, everyone had seen him with her, so even if they were inclined to hit him harder than necessary, they _didn't_ for fear of getting hit _back_ by the large monster girl.

The flash of red hair caught Asriel's attention. He tried to make his way through the crowd to see if it was Undyne's red hair that he had seen, but after more than two seconds of looking he realized that he was mistaken. For starters, Undyne was plainly visible wherever she was due to her height and general demeanor. In contrast, this other person was small in stature and had a skin tone that marked them as being quite human. As Asriel watched, the crowd parted for them as if they projected some kind of personal barrier set at a constant three inches from their person. They didn't shove through the crowd so much as slid through it, dancing and jumping and completely at home in the chaos. Their black tank top with the skull-and-crossbones on it should have alerted Asriel to the danger that was plainly labeled on the packaging, but while Asriel had a sense of danger finely-tuned by some very unfortunate interactions with his schoolmates in recent years, most of that had been dulled by a general lack of caring for what happened to him on a day-to-day basis. So, he just watched, fascinated, as this slender human wove through the crowd with an effortlessness that he knew his larger build could never have managed.

He was more than a little jealous, if he were being totally honest with himself.

As he stood there, a little dumbfounded, they slid next to him and started to dance with him. Or for him. Or against him. One of those applied, and it was probably the last one as Asriel wasn't really doing any dancing himself. He kind of froze as this person's body pressed against his. It wasn't anything as violent as the thrashing and colliding that was going on in the center of the pit, though that didn't make the action any less wild. Asriel caught his breath, keeping close to the person like he was a sturdy post in a storm and this person was wind, lightning, and rain all in one. When Asriel eventually got knocked from the side and clumsily stumbled a little, they kept him steady with a surprising amount of strength for how small they were. Throughout all this, the red-haired human was perfectly silent, just lost in the motions of their body and the rhythm of the song. He even noticed that their eyes were closed, and they kept close to him by _feel_ rather than by sight, as if the act of physical contact with him made everything else irrelevant.

As the song kept going, the red-haired human managed to work the two of them through the edge of the crowd and over to a wall that both of them could lean on. Asriel's breathing came in quick gasps that had nothing to do with effort and everything to do with his heart racing so fast that he needed more airflow to fill his bloodstream with oxygen. He realized he should _say_ something, because that's what you did when someone held you up so that you didn't get stomped on, right? Both of his parents had always stressed the importance of politeness, after all. So, he started to talk, realizing about halfway through that he had no idea what one should say here. "Thanks. If you hadn't held me up back there, I would've... uh. Well, you know. It's actually my first time out there."

The human looked up at him with a wild, playful look in their red eyes and pressed their body against his again. Their voice was low, barely a whisper against the surrounding cacophony, and yet they projected enough that he could hear the words perfectly in his oversized ears.

" _Kiss me_."

Asriel's eyes widened a bit. "What?" He stared at the human for a moment, uncomprehending. Who was this person anyway? Why did they want to do.. that? With him? Right then? He glanced around, trying to catch a glimpse of the red hair that _was_ Undyne, but he couldn't see her anywhere. An uneasy tingle crept through his skin and made his fur stand on end and he couldn't directly pinpoint the reason for that. He should want to kiss someone who was, admittedly, kind of pretty, right?

The human, whose gender was indeterminate even to Asriel who was better than most monsters at picking those details out on a human, got an impatient sort of expression on their face. They looked up into the goat monster's eyes and made sure he was looking right at them so that there would be no mistaking that he was the target of their words.

"Kiss. Me."

Asriel squirmed, backing up a little. That danger sense was now _quite_ active and cutting through the mental fog of his lack of concern for the world around him. Luckily enough, the human wasn't actually pinning him to the wall or anything that would have set off _more_ alarm bells. As it was, his heart was starting to race in a completely _different_ way than it had been just a moment ago. He sincerely doubted that was what this small human was going for here, but he'd had enough experience being cornered by people who meant him harm that this reaction was something deep, primal, and all-encompassing.

_Not again. No. Not again._

This was why he hadn't left the house often. This fear of being cornered, of not being able to get away.

"I don't _know_ you!" he stammered, backing away along the wall. He looked past the human's shoulder, trying to look for Undyne in the crowd, but in his brief scan he couldn't immediately pick her out. His fur was starting to stand on end and that familiar, uneasy tingle at the thought of being trapped crept along his skin.

The playful expression slowly dissolved into one of confusion. They cast a glance to the side, as if trying to cover their uncertainty up with some kind of motion as a distraction. "You don't want to?" they asked as they took a step backward, making enough space so that they were no longer pressed into Asriel's personal space. There still wasn't much distance separating them, but there was at least space enough for Asriel to move.

"No?" he replied, as if that were the most obvious answer in the world and he couldn't imagine how anyone could think differently. "I can't just go around kissing random strangers, you know?"

This just caused the human to laugh. It was a wild sound to match the wild look in their eyes. "Why not? Plenty of people do it." They said, keeping pace with Asriel's retreat but not getting any closer than the foot or so of space that separated them now.

Asriel frowned, stopping his retreat. "Well I _don't_." he said. He really had his doubts that a lot of people _did_ , outside of movies and television and certain parties that he had no wish to be invited to. "Look. You're _clearly_ intoxicated and you're starting to creep me out here." He said, straightforwardly.

This caused the human to freeze again. "Creep you... out?" they said, the uncertainty on their face finally having crept into their voice. They took a step forward again. "Tell me what to do. Did I come on too strong? Is that not what you want? And for your information, I'm _not_ drunk. So why don't you just do what every other guy seems to want to do and tell me how to _act_ so that we can make with the _kissing_."

Was that a hint of something like desperation in their voice? Asriel couldn't tell, and he didn't know if he _wanted_ to tell. Despite their assertion of their own sobriety, Asriel didn't really believe that they _weren't_ intoxicated in _some_ manner. That's the first thing a drunk person said, right? That they weren't drunk? He was very aware that he had to set boundaries here, because what this human was trying to do was _wrong_. If he was going to get beat up again at least he was going to do it knowing he wasn't the kind of guy who would take advantage of a drunk person, or, more to the point, let a drunk person take advantage of _him_.

He looked down at them, crossing his arms in what he hoped was a universal gesture of don't-mess-with-me. "You're kidding, right? I don't know what you think is going to happen here, but I have a friend who's really tough. And anyway, I said I didn't want to kiss you and that should be enough for you to _stop_ , okay? But if I have to spell it out for you, _I don't want this_ , so just leave me _alone_." He didn't shove them back or anything but he hoped that his body language was making it clear that he wouldn't tolerate any further advance on the human's part.

Whatever he thought would happen here, the one thing that he _wasn't_ expecting was for the human to _stop_. That grin of theirs froze on their face as if their skin was suddenly made of wood, their eyes went wide, and their pupils contracted as if they were suddenly staring at something very far away. Then, they said, "Yeah. Yeah, I got you. All five-by-five." They cast another glance around, their eyes settling on the exit to the back alley where all the smokers usually went to light up. They waved him off with a shaky hand and started to head off in that direction. "You can go. Just.. go."

This confused Asriel more than anything. Wasn't aggression a human trait that was hard to control? That had always been his experience with humans, anyway. And yet, _this_ human stopped when he said to stop. What was more, they were actually leaving him alone. As they turned and walked away, though, he noticed that something seemed even more off about them now than it did before. They were kind of stumbling, their knees nearly buckling as they caught themself against the wall.

_Oh no. They ARE drunk. And if they go out there… someone's going to hurt them._

Of course, there was another possibility that wormed its way into his mind, and it's that this person was having a panic attack. He'd _had_ that reaction before. He'd just never seen what it looked like from the _outside_. Concern for this human warred internally with the relief of being left alone, and after a few moments concern won a resounding victory. He started to follow after them toward the exit that he had been so intent on making sure he was in close proximity to at the beginning of the concert.

"Hey! Hey, uh, red-hair? Are you okay? Hey, would you just stop for a moment and _look_ at me?"

Thankfully for anyone involved, the exit didn't seem to be an emergency exit and wasn't going to set off an alarm and cause a stampede when it was opened. However, as the next song started to play, the crowd did start to push at the human's personal space. This was the crowd that Asriel had been trying like hell to avoid getting mixed up with for fear of having an impromptu horn-ectomy, and no matter how good they were at navigating a crowd, this human was about half as big as him and probably twice as squishy. As he saw the jumping and thrashing radiate toward the edge of the crowd, Asriel made a snap decision that even five minutes ago he hadn't known he was capable of.

_This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever done._

The sizeable goat dashed forward and sort of placed himself between the crowd and the human, giving them a direct path to the exit as a couple of people jostled him from behind. Of course, once the crowd saw what he was doing, the jostling subsided as much as it could, but even so, Asriel continued to shield this slender, red-haired person from the crowd as they staggered and stumbled toward the exit on wobbling legs.

~~~

They burst through the door, and thankfully there weren't any smokers on the other end to muck up the air or block the opening of said door. Quite unfortunately, though, there was a small step down. As Asriel called out a warning, the human lost their footing on the unexpected step, stumbled, fell forward, twisted in the air, and slammed into the opposite wall of the alleyway. Then they sort of crumpled and slid down so that they were sitting against it.

"…I fell down," they said, lamely.

Asriel looked down at them for a brief moment before he stepped over to their side of the alley. He didn't get too close, as their heavy breathing and unfocused look in their eyes indicated clearly that they were still in the middle of whatever panic or intoxication they had been under the effects of inside the venue. He did, however, sit down nearby. The alley was not clean by any means, but the human didn't seem to care, and Asriel cared more about their well-being than he did about laundry. Or hepatitis. It occurred to him just _after_ sitting down to wonder whether monsters could even _get_ hepatitis. The internet probably knew, he figured.

The red-haired human tried to wave him away with a shaky hand. "I'm.. I'm fine. You can go. Really. Go enjoy the show, okay?" Their voice was just as shaky as their hand was, and this did absolutely nothing to settle the game of 'panic or drunk' that was playing itself out in Asriel's mind at the moment.

As that game was entering the last third or so of regulation play, the commentator that was Asriel's Inner Monologue detailed several possible conversational openers that Asriel could use here. There was the obvious " _What's wrong?"_ , followed by the slightly less obvious _"I know what you're feeling right now"_ and even the more than slightly vindictive _"It serves you right."_ In the end, though, Asriel decided to ignore the play-by-play and went with curiosity.

"Why did you want to kiss me?"

The human curled up so that they could rest their chin on their knees. Their head was tilted down slightly so their red hair fell over their eyes and hid their face a little. "Why do you care?"

"Because I was scared for you." He said, and it was the honest truth. He'd thought they were going to get themself hurt by stumbling into the crowd, and even aside from that he had been worried they were either incredibly intoxicated or having what appeared to be a sudden panic attack related to the entire incident with wanting to kiss him in the first place.

The human snorted. "You were scared _of_ me. There is an important point of distinction there."

"Yeah." Asriel admitted, with a sigh. When it was put to him so directly, he couldn't really deny it, as much as he knew he probably _should_. "I guess I was. But I couldn't just let you get hurt, you know? And anyway, you haven't answered my question. Why?"

The human gave their own sigh, which _sounded_ just as long-suffering as Asriel's _felt_. "I just... get that way, okay?"

This only confused Asriel even more. He shouldn't push, and he knew it. Lots of people 'just got that way' and that's what made them bad people. As he looked at this human, though, he had the feeling that there was some deeper truth there that he just wasn't grasping. That was why he decided he couldn't just leave it at that. "Yeah, but... why?"

They lifted their head and then rested their cheek on their knees so they could look at him. Their eyes had a little more focus to them now, which was an improvement. "I... don't know." They said. "There's this part of me. This bad part. I keep it inside, and then it comes out because I can't control it anymore. And it makes me do things I regret." They gave a mirthless little chuckle. "'The devil made me do it.' It's the oldest fucking excuse in the world, right? Literally the oldest. Kinda makes me feel like shit every time I say it."

Asriel tried to reason through that explanation and came up with the same conclusions he had always come to when people claimed that they couldn't control themselves: that this was the excuse that psychopaths and serial killers have when they didn't want to be held accountable for their own actions. And yet, there was the lingering sensation that this person might actually be telling at least some version of the truth. They may be a lot of things that Asriel didn't know about yet, but they sure didn't look like an actual serial killer. There was also the fact that they had obviously _been_ in control of themself, at least at the point that Asriel told them that he didn't want to be kissed. So, he decided to bring that up. "That can't be right. If you had no control, you wouldn't have listened to me when I told you to stop. A person with no conscience or control _wouldn't_ have walked away like that."

This seemed to cause the human to go into another minor round of shakes, and they tensed their arms around their legs in that curled-up sitting position in what appeared to be an attempt to stabilize themselves. They were smiling, but the expression didn't fit with Asriel's internal definition of what a smile _was_. There was something very _off_ about that expression right then, in Asriel's perception, and when they spoke, Asriel realized that they were trying to work through their own actions just as hard as Asriel was. "But that means that... I meant everything that came before that."

Asriel didn't know whether to try and snap them out of their internal crisis, so he at least decided to give them a little time to compose themself. "Hey. Um. Look, I'm going to go get some water for you, okay? Just promise me you won't go anywhere," he said. He knew it wasn't good to leave them totally alone, but he needed to collect his thoughts too and he really did think the water would help them. He stood up. "I'll be right back. Uh. Hmm. If anyone tries to bother you, just make a lot of noise, okay?"

They nodded. "Yeah. Yeah… I'll just… I'll be right here," they said, and they were sort of clenching their hands a little and trying to keep everything from shaking.

_~~~_

Asriel was fast. Because the music was still going, more people were focusing on that than they were trying to get drinks. The venue sold soda and alcohol, so Asriel knew that he would be able to get a cup of water for free because he was underage and could claim to be a designated driver. Despite this, he opted for a sealed bottle of water. He felt like it was really important that this person knew he wasn't a threat, and therefore he wanted to avoid the suspicion that he knew all too well that an open drink could bring.

The human was still there sitting curled up with their back against the wall of the alleyway when he returned. He had only been gone a couple of minutes, but a small part of him had been quite afraid they would leave and end up as some nameless victim in the next day's newspaper. He sat down beside them again and handed the sealed bottle of water over to them. "Here. This helps me whenever I start freaking out. It might help you, too." When they just gave the water a look as if it were some strange and foreign substance, he decided that he should probably add a bit of explanation here. "It's water." He thought he was being incredibly helpful in that moment by mentioning that.  
  
The human looked up at him and frowned slightly. "...I can tell by how it says 'water' on the bottle." As Asriel started to stammer a response to that, the human reached over and took the bottle from him. They looked at the cap and their expression softened ever so slightly when they realized it was a _sealed_ bottle. "...Fuck. You're...being really nice to me, aren't you. Like _actually_ nice to me. And here I was thinking you weren't even going to come back."

"Of _course_ I was going to come back. I _said_ I would, didn't I?" he said. "And I wasn't about to just leave you curled up in an alley. Who does that?"

The human looked at him for a long moment, assessing him. Asriel got the distinct impression that they were trying to internally adjust how they were seeing him, as if they were focusing through that gigantic machine with all the lenses in an optometrist's office. Their expression changed, suddenly, as a new lens snapped into place and they were asked to focus on the Asriel they were seeing now. And then, they just laughed. "Oh man. I'm… I'm really fucked up, aren't I."

Asriel shrugged. "I don't _understand_ you," he admitted. "But I wouldn't say you're.. messed up." His mom would murder him if he swore in public. Even though she wasn't actually _there_ , the lesson stuck, even if he _did_ know that this may not be the right time to worry about his _language_. "Or. You know."

"Fucked up," the human reiterated. "And look. You seem really nice and all, and I really appreciate you making sure I was okay and everything. And the water. And…" Their words trailed off, and then they took a single deep breath, exhaled with another of those sighs that invoked the image of a person far older than this human actually _was_ , and held out a hand to him. "Hi. I'm Chara. I'm the bad thing that happens to good people."

Asriel took their hand in his paw and shook it. He still remained sitting an appreciable distance away from them, though. The game of 'panic or drunk' had resolved itself and that meant that he wasn't quite certain how much of the panic bubbling inside them was just waiting to boil over into another full blown episode. "You haven't _really_ done anything to me yet. Aside from the whole kissing thing, I mean," he said. "And I'm Asriel. It's really good to meet you."

Chara squeezed his hand and then resumed curling up around themself. "You know that you could have just walked away, right?" they said after taking another sip of water. "Like. Just walked off and left me here. And not come back. That was a choice you could have made."

Asriel shrugged again. "No. It's _not_ a choice I could have made." He said. "I kinda know what it feels like. To feel that kind of panic. Or some kind of panic, anyway. And hey, I made sure you didn't get hurt coming _out_ here, and anyway, I'm not about to leave you alone in an alley. That's how people get _killed_ , you know?"

This made Chara laugh. "Hah. You really don't know me if you think that's the case. And let's say you're _right_." Chara looked over to him again. "If I did," they said, their voice lowering a little, "If I did get hurt. Wouldn't I deserve it?"

"Why would you deserve it?" Asriel asked in return.

Chara looked down, letting their hair fall forward to hide their eyes. "Didn't you know, Asriel? In this world, it's kill or be killed."

This response caused Asriel to go perfectly still, and a chill spread through his insides as if he were pierced by freezing needles and left to bleed out. "Why.." he stammered. "Why do you say that?" Those were the words that described the things he felt every single day as he walked through the halls of his school. Those were the words that he had never quite been able to say as he tried to maintain the fiction that he was going to be okay as long as he didn't go out of his way to hurt anyone else. And yet, despite all this, it wasn't something he could ever truly believe. Whether it was real or not, he absolutely couldn't accept that all people wanted to do was hurt each other. _He_ wasn't like that, after all, so he was proof against that statement being absolute truth.

Chara just chuckled. It wasn't a happy sound at all. It was, in fact, somewhere between self-mocking and actively hostile. "Because that's the way things _work_. I couldn't be… whatever it is you wanted, so what good am I to you?" Their face was still hidden behind red hair, so it was nearly impossible for Asriel to read Chara's expression.

"It doesn't have to be." Asriel said, astonishment that anyone could even _think_ like that creeping into his voice. "And you can't be what I want you to be, because as I said before, _you don't know me_."

The more he thought about that sentence, the more he realized there was something important he hadn't asked yet. He didn't even know if he wanted the answer, but now that the question was in his mind, it stuck there like a cockleburr in the fur of his thoughts. Just like that, the creeping horror of his existence overshadowed his concern for this human for the briefest of moments. "Why _are_ you interested in me anyway? I've never _seen_ you before. Wait. You haven't been stalking me, have you? Nobody put you _up_ to this, did they?"

Were Chara's cheeks turning red? He couldn't tell, because the difference between a human's blush, naturally splotchy human skin, and a panic attack response was completely lost on him. "No, I…" they said, and it was apparent they were fumbling for the right sentence to get through the awkward accusation. "No, I've never seen you before tonight. I haven't been stalking you." Their voice shook a little as they added, "But still. I don't see how that makes what I did, or tried to do anyway, any less wrong."

Asriel was inclined to agree with them, but he also knew that wouldn't be helpful in this particular situation. It wasn't like Chara was fishing for reassurance or anything, and he wasn't really about to give them that reassurance even if they were. On the other hand, if they were being honest right now and really did know that they were in the wrong, what good would it do to just pile it on? When it came down to it, he didn't know what he could reasonably say to something like that, but he could at least try to smooth things over between the two of them in a constructive manner.

"You don't have to live like this," he explained to them. "Whatever you did in the past, you know it's wrong _now_ , right? So you can change. You can be a better person. You can make your own choices, okay?"

This got another chuckle from them. "It's not just all better, just like that," they said. "But thanks. It means something that you stuck by me when I'm obviously unstable. It's like you said earlier. You don't know me. I'm just some stranger in literally every sense of the word that you can imagine." They took another gulp of water, but it was clear that they weren't shaking anymore. Now they just looked glum.

He wanted to say something to bring a smile to their face, or at the very least some show of honest emotion. "Hey Chara, you go to school, right?" he asked, then immediately mentally facepalmed. Of course they went to school. They didn't look old enough to have graduated, and in fact they looked to be something close to Asriel's own age. It didn't even occur to him that Chara could have dropped out, because that went against his internalized established order of the world. "Um. I'm starting classes tomorrow at Curie High. I don't know if we're in the same grade or not. Or even the same school, really…" The town was big enough to contain multiple high schools, and so it really was a longshot that this person would have gone to the same one he did.

Against all statistical odds, however, this produced a visible widening of Chara's eyes as they looked at him. "What, really? No fucking way." They said. "Yeah, I'm starting there too, tomorrow."

"Oh! That's great!" Asriel beamed. "That means I can see you during classes! Or lunch! Or something! I'm taking art with Ms. Temmie!"

Chara shrugged. "Yeah, me too. Had to take something, I guess. Dunno if I was gonna go, though. Guess we'll see after the first day. I mean I'm not good enough to make any money at it, or get a scholarship, or uh. Probably even pass. But hey. Worth a try, right?" they said.

Asriel internally skipped right over the part where they just admitted to being a terrible student, and latched onto the thing they had in common. He felt his own eyes involuntarily widening and felt something inside him warm in a way he hadn't felt in a very long time. It was "You draw too? I'm sure it's better than anything I can do. It's just that I really like to do it. I… I haven't done it in awhile though. I was hoping maybe the art class would sort of kick me into gear again, you know?"

"Mmh," Chara said, noncommittally. "Well, more like painting, really. Uh. Hey. Speaking of that whole school thing…" they said, "Shouldn't you be getting home or something? I mean. There can't be _two_ of us falling asleep in the same class, you know? It'd look suspicious. Scandalous, even."

Asriel jumped up. "Oh, shit! The concert!" He mentally reprimanded himself again for letting that one slip. This time, though, the internal voice that chided him wasn't his mother's, but instead took the tone of the chiseled-jawed blond soldier from a series of science-fiction superhero movies. Figuring that he must have really slipped if _that_ guy were correcting him, he quickly tried to reel the word back in and cover it up with what he realized was a legitimate concern. "Shoot, Undyne must be looking for me!"

Chara looked toward the side of the alleyway that opened out into the street and faced the parking lot on the other side. Asriel thought he saw them shiver slightly, even though the summer night was one of the warmest he'd felt all season. They mumbled a sort of apology at him, "Sorry for keeping you out so late. I'll just, uh. I don't live far from here, you know. So I can walk home. I'll be fine, I promise."

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" he asked, with a brief note of hope in his voice. "You can meet my friend, and we can listen to the rest of the concert together!" Asriel couldn't recall the last time he had honestly opened up to someone enough to take the step of inviting them to spend _more_ time with him. If he were _really_ being honest with himself, he would realize that he couldn't remember the last time he been social at _all_ without shrinking into a corner in a big, furry ball of social anxiety and regret. That was why he preferred to stick around Undyne, who was far better at being social than he was and more apt to command all the attention a room had to offer. If he were in _her_ shadow, things seemed to be a little more okay.

As Asriel held his paw out to help Chara stand, Chara looked toward the alleyway exit one more time as if deciding whether to make a hasty, if shaky, exit anyway. Then, they looked at the half-empty water bottle in their hand, and then their gaze lifted a little to focus on Asriel's paw. Finally, after a few seconds that Asriel's internal reckoning expanded into about an hour and a half, they reached their own slender hand out to grasp his paw and start to stand using him for support. Between him, the wall, and their own shaky legs they finally got their feet under them enough for Asriel to be confident that walking was something they could do with some degree of success. "You're… pretty strong." they said.

Asriel felt a sudden and intense rush of heat through his bloodstream. Had anyone ever called him strong before? He didn't know. He didn't remember it ever happening. His first instinct was to brush off the compliment, or at least minimize it. "Nah, it's just… I mean, I'm big. Compared to you. Uh. You know what I mean." His heart was suddenly beating faster than the vibrations from the kick drum that he could feel all the way out here. Given that the band's drummer was a four-legged kangaroo, this was, he imagined, an incredible accomplishment on the part of his poor heart, especially given how _much_ of him there was to pump blood _through_.

Chara just looked up at him. "No. That's not what I mean," they said, and Asriel thought that they were going to follow that comment up with an explanation. Instead, they leaned against his arm and said, "Okay. I think I'm cool to go back in there."

As they walked the few steps across the alley, he realized that the thing that had made him feel so close to this human who had initially terrified him so much was the realization that they both panicked in the same way. He had seen their vulnerable side and that wasn't something he was used to seeing in a human. He wasn't used to seeing it in _anyone_ , really, and definitely not in the same way he was used to feeling it in _himself_. It meant that on a very real level, he wasn't alone. That was huge. The thought emboldened him and made him want to start talking again, and even though he felt like he was grinning like the world's biggest moron, for once, he didn't _care_. "Yeah, so, my friend is a bit loud, and more than a little, uh. Belligerent. But I think you'll like her!"

"Hey, if she likes the band, then we have something in common already," Chara replied with a smirk and a nudge against his arm with their shoulder.

"Us too, you know…" he said, and then realized that he hadn't actually verbalized the epiphany he'd had regarding their respective panic responses. He suddenly desperately hoped that they wouldn't ask him about that comment, and in that moment he felt...just as exposed as Chara must have in the moments after collapsing to the ground in the alley.

Luckily for him, they seemed to not want to go down that particular conversation path. Instead, they got a huge grin on their face. "Oh, I already _knew_ that we had something in common." They reached over with the hand not grasping his paw and tapped at his chest. "You like Floyd."

The goat chuckled in response. "I've never actually been to one of their shows, unfortunately. And if you can believe it, _The Wall_ is actually my favorite. _Dark Side_ is second." He had been in enough internet arguments to know that there were two camps when it came to that opinion, and that wasn't even counting the people from the pre-internet generation who had actually _grown up_ with Pink Floyd as the soundtrack to their teenage years.

Chara smirked. "While that is a valid opinion, it is also _wrong_ ," they said, teasingly. "But I forgive you anyway."

"Hey! My opinion is the correct one!" he said, returning their earlier nudge with his own elbow to show that he, too, was not taking the conversation with the kind of seriousness that most internet forum-goers would have.

Friendships had ended over less, after all, and he wasn't about to torpedo this one before it got out of port.

~~~

The band was just going into the last third of their set and the crowd was starting to go a little wild. Contrary to what one would think would be the case, this actually made Undyne a lot _easier_ for Asriel to find. Part of this was because Asriel was tall enough to see over most people's heads, but it was also because he knew to look for Undyne at whatever location in the venue looked like it was experiencing the most turmoil. Even though Undyne was, Asriel saw, having what looked like an absolutely _amazing_ time flailing around and flying at assorted other concertgoers, she was also observant enough of her surroundings to lock eyes with Asriel as he re-entered the building. Somewhere deep down inside, Asriel realized that being so toweringly huge meant that he didn't have to wave his arm over his head like a moron and shout to try to get Undyne's attention, but that didn't really stop him from _doing_ it. "Hey! Undyne!" he called, though the fact that he could barely hear _himself_ meant that his words were probably ineffective at anything besides making Chara aware of who he was calling out to.

Even though Asriel thought it was probably pretty lame that he was trying to make himself appear cooler through his association with Undyne, he had to admit that it made his mood jump an entire order of magnitude when he realized it worked. The corners of his mouth turned upward in a grin as _Chara's_ mouth hung open in awe. It was only a brief second though before they found their voice again and said, "Wait a fuck. _She's_ your tough friend?"

"Well, yeah," Asriel replied with a little bit of embarrassment in his voice. He'd never really thought about the fact that his friend was the most athletic person in school, and also one of the most volatile. He'd just kind of accepted it after a couple years or so of her trying to get him to buck up and enjoy life. Now that it was pointed out so plainly to him, however, he had to admit that he and Undyne made an odd pair of friends, especially since in his mind, she was all the things that he _wasn't_.

This inner observation was compounded by Chara's next statement. "Holy crap, dude. I've seen her around. She's fucking _awesome_. I sure as fuck wouldn't want to mess with her. I bet just one punch from her could take my head _clean off_." Chara paused for a quick breath and Asriel figured that Chara would stop there, like any normal person would when praising another person's outward merits. Asriel figured wrong. "I mean, hell, she could probably pick me up, toss me over her shoulder, and go tie me up and just spend the rest of the night stepping on me. And boy, I'd _let_ her, too. Whew, what an absolute perfect specimen of…" Chara seemed to realize what they were saying and just broke that line of one-sided conversation off with a cough. "...I mean. She's _real_ tough, is what I'm saying."

Asriel was quickly noticing that once Chara got going, they didn't really _stop talking_ until things got too awkward to continue. He wondered exactly when this would end up being a problem, but then kind of dismissed that thought. Everyone had their quirks after all, right? If Chara was showing all of theirs up _front_ , that was a good thing, he reasoned.

Before Chara could sing any more of Undyne's praises or, more importantly, make any more awkward statements regarding being stepped on, they were greeted by the whirlwind in a coating of fish scales herself as the crowd parted to let her over to the edge of the venue floor. "SEE?" she called out in a voice that in contrast to Asriel's was _plainly_ audible over _whatever_ was going on at the moment. "I _TOLD_ you that you'd find a way to live a little! Even made a new friend!"

Asriel tactfully neglected to point out that Undyne's idea of 'making friends' involved a literal application of the phrase 'fite me irl'. Asriel did have to admit that her brand of excessively assertive _frienderizing_ tended to work to the advantage of the targets of her _frienderization_ , largely because it meant she was intimidating as heck to people who _weren't_ on her good side. Undyne's efforts to keep Asriel more or less in one piece when she was around him were pretty successful, but the flip side of that was that if Asriel's mom knew even a _fraction_ of the kinds of trouble that Undyne got into and out of on any given day with Asriel around, the phrase "visible from orbit" would grace their mutual obituary.

Asriel cleared his throat and gestured to the pale, red-haired human standing next to him. "Undyne? This is Chara," Asriel said by way of introduction. "It turns out we're all going to the same school starting tomorrow!"

"Oh? No shit!" Undyne said. The grin that accompanied this statement displayed _far_ more teeth than was reasonable, and this, coupled with the eyepatch that Undyne had worn since before Asriel had met her, made her look like what would happen if a shark mated with a pirate. Not knowing Undyne's family lineage, Asriel could only suspect that this has _actually_ been the case somewhere in her ancestry.

"Yeah, basically what I said," Chara replied, once they managed to pick their jaw up off the floor and use it to form words that didn't involve some kind of domination-themed self-insert fanfiction.

"We just kinda started talking," Asriel explained, more than happy to skim over the part about _how_ they'd started talking and what Chara was trying to get him to do _before_ they started talking. "They're really nice," he said, hoping that the smile on his face wasn't too dopey.

Chara got a smile on their face that matched Asriel's in genuineness, if not in appearance. They quickly covered that smile up with an air of nonchalance. Asriel got the distinct impression that they were the kind of person who, when other people were around, couldn't bear to let themself show actual enthusiasm. He could relate to that, because he was the same way. He wondered if, given Chara's earlier statements about the world, they had been an enthusiastic kid who had that enthusiasm yanked away little by little every time something they liked was ridiculed by people around them. Over time, that killed a person's enthusiasm about anything. A single grain of salt could be nothing, but till it into the earth of a garden slowly over time and eventually nothing could grow there.

Asriel's attention was pulled from this internal rumination by Chara's voice once more. "Yeah, I mean, we're basically gonna get married now," they stated, as casually as if they were a hipster college student ordering a latte.

Once he processed the content of that statement, Asriel's entire face started to heat up. He was _quite_ glad at this point that he had enough fur on his face to hide the kind of blush that humans had to worry about. He tried to laugh it off just as casually as Chara had. "Well, I mean, we just met. But hey, school's going to be better than I expected it to be, if _that's_ how you feel about me!"

At this, Chara just grasped onto his arm in an imitation of a doting bride. "Yeah! I mean, imagine all the saucy rumors going around about two students who are already _married_!" They drew out this last part, placing emphasis on it as they clung to his arm as if it were the only lifeline in a storm.

Asriel just covered his face with the paw attached to his free arm. "Right. Uh. Chara is kind of forward, you see. Probably how we're friends in the first place. I don't think I'd have the courage to talk to them on my own." He looked down at Chara, who had quite firmly attached themself to his arm. "And, uh, anyway, the thing is, it would probably be better than any other rumor that could go around about me?"

Undyne just looked at the two of them, her gaze going from Asriel to Chara and then back. Her mouth opened, then she frowned and seemed to reconsider what she was about to say and closed it. She tried again, her mouth opening for a moment and then closing. And then, finally, she went with, "Right. Okay. Chara, was it? Maybe you should get to _know_ my friend a little first before you start planning the ceremony."

Asriel felt himself heating up again. Was it possible to overheat from pure embarrassment? He had a feeling he was about to find out. He had this vision of his fur turning as bright as an entire orchard's worth of cherries. "Haha, well, I mean, if the rumor's going to spread that we're already hitched, then that means we've already _had_ the ceremony, right?" He tried to play along, because that would make him seem cool, right? That was incredibly important to him right then. He _wanted_ Chara to think he was cool, because he thought _they_ were cool, and if someone who seemed to be so much _like_ him was cool then there was hope for him, right?

Chara once again confirmed that they were the sort of person who just kept going with something once it started. "Yeah! _Think_ about it! It'd be a quiet little thing! Some nice _music_ , I'd have a nice suit and a pretty swank pair of shoes, you'd have _flowers_ in your hair…" They smirked. "And I can just _imagine_ what your _dress_ would look like! Fucking _adorable_ , you think? And I can only _imagine_ the lingerie for the _wedding night_..."

And just like that, the giddy gave way to a sinking pit of despair that swallowed up every bit of happiness the night had any chance of granting him. Chara just had to go _there_. Of _course_ this entire thing was just a setup. In retrospect, he should have seen this punchline coming a mile away the moment Chara had mentioned the entire _concept_ of marriage. Monster families, the really _old_ monster families anyway, had a lot of traditions that went into their life bonding ceremonies. One of those had to do with the attire of those who were _being_ heartbonded. There were robes, and those robes could be very elaborate, and to human society which placed a lot of importance on the concept of gender these robes were usually mocked as being very _dress-_ like. Asriel had heard that one a lot, growing up, and the fact that Chara had used their entire experience that evening as a long-form setup to yet one more emasculating joke at his expense cut deep. He only hoped he could extract himself from the joke before it could be carried any further. "Okay, that's enough. This is going too far." he said, yanking his arm free of their grip. "I don't _appreciate_ that kind of humor, okay? I thought you were _better_ than that. I thought you were _different_."

Chara's smile froze on their face for the briefest of instants. It was quick enough that nobody would have caught it if they didn't know to look for it and weren't looking right at Chara. Asriel, however, _was_ looking right at Chara. He had no idea what was about to come, just that it would hurt. He wasn't disappointed on that count, but at least he wasn't surprised either. Chara's eyes went wide again and they brought a hand to their mouth to try and cover up the reaction through laughter. And even though Asriel was expecting something to happen, it still hurt when it did. "Hah. Haha. Hahaha. I really had you going there, didn't I? Right? Marriage? I mean come on, can you imagine it?"

Even though Asriel expected that laughter, it still twisted the knife just a little more. He didn't know which was worse, the part where Chara had just proved they were like every other closed-minded human out there, or that they had ended it by confirming that neither they nor anyone else would want to date someone like him. Or do anything _else_ with him, either. Definitely not the kinds of activities that the phrase _wedding night_ evoked in his mind. He was aware on an intellectual level that he had placed a lot of importance on the approval and demeanor of someone he had _just met_ , but still, did Chara have to go all in with a joke like that in front of Undyne, of all people? Asriel felt himself shrinking, and he resisted the urge to glare at Chara no matter how hurt he was.

He didn't have a retort, of course. He could never think fast enough on his feet to come up with something clever and cutting to say in the moment. He'd write about it on FaceJournal later, of course, and by then he would have thought of the thing he should have said. He might even pretend he _had_ said it, just to make himself feel better, even though everyone who bothered to follow him would know immediately that he wouldn't have.

Undyne, to her credit, definitely had a retort ready. "Are you for fucking real right now? There is such a thing as taking something _too far_ , you know? And in case you are as _blind_ as you are _stupid_ , consider that _I'm_ a fucking monster, _too_. So just fucking knock it off with the bigotry about what monsters wear to weddings, or else we're gonna have the ceremonial _feeding of the knuckle sandwich._ " Undyne took a step toward Chara, one hand raised and clenched in a fist. She did, in fact, look like she was about to feed it to Chara, knuckles-first, and was just looking for one more excuse to do exactly that.

Chara responded by taking two steps backward and raising their hands. This was just one more confirmation that pretty much _everyone_ could be intimidated by Undyne, even someone who appeared to be terminally incapable of self-awareness. Their eyes were wide, their cheeks bright red, and any confidence and energy in their voice seemed to have melted away in an instant under the heat of Undyne's glare. "Hey. Yeah, maybe that was too far. Just.. yeah. I'll shut up. Haha. Guess I'm really not the nicest person after all, huh?"

Asriel sighed and his face resolved into a smile that was positively dripping with saccharine. "I'll be right back," he said. "I just have to throw this away." He held up the water bottle which wasn't even halfway empty and, without waiting for an answer, started to walk toward the restrooms fast enough for it to be called a 'dash' or at least a 'quick shuffle'.

_~~~_

There were three sets of restrooms in the venue: mens, womens, and gender-neutral. He picked the men's room, went right to a stall, shut himself in, and lowered a seat so he could sit down. He buried his face in his paws, trying to repress the sobs gurgling in his throat.

_Stupid! How could I have been so stupid!_

After a few moments, a very, very familiar voice rang out with, "Hey. How about you all fuck off?" This was followed by one or two sets of footsteps as the couple of people who were in the restroom did, in fact, fuck off. Then, the sound of someone leaning against the outer enclosure of the stall that Asriel was in. "Hey."

_They're back. They're back for more._

Asriel was silent as he felt his fur standing on edge again, and he lifted his feet so that no one could see them if they looked under the stall. He hugged his knees and tried to suppress his sobs again, with marginal success.

There was a sigh from outside the stall. "Yeah. Silence. I deserve that." Chara said. "Look, I…" they faltered. Asriel hoped they would get the hint and just leave without him having to say anything. In an ideal situation, they would just forget he was there, kind of like how the tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park only went after movement. No such luck though. It also occurred to him that in that movie, the guy who ran into the bathroom was the _first_ person to get eaten. "Look. I didn't mean it. The part about getting hitched. I meant everything else tonight. From earlier in the alleyway. I just…"

Asriel wasn't about to listen to it. "Go away. Just go away."

But they just kept talking. "I don't know what to do with feelings, so I joke."

Asriel replied, louder this time. " _Just shut up and go away._ "

This time, they just outright ignored him. There wasn't any chance that they didn't hear him, so it was obvious they were ignoring his repeated requests to just leave him be. Asriel felt his fear and sadness give way to a deep anger that rose in the back of his throat, and still they continued to talk. "I joke, and then I joke too much. And it hurts people. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, I realize right now that the joke I _actually_ made was really dumb and insensitive. And no, I wasn't just going to drag you off to Vegas or whatever tonight. But I _do_ like you. You're nice. And I'm terrible." Another sigh. "And...you could do me some good. Probably."

Asriel was practically seething with fury at this point. "So how could I do that? By coming out so you can make jokes at my expense again? So you can laugh at the big monster and his silly customs? I don't care whether or not you _lose control_ of yourself or you _don't mean_ to hurt people, because you do it _anyway_." He should just stop talking, and he knew it, but he kept going, because all of this had to be said. "You humiliated me in front of the only friend I have! What am I to you? Some kind of plaything you can have fun with before you're bored of me and toss me over the side? How many times did you do this?"

Asriel was on a roll now, and because Chara was silent, there was nothing really stopping that roll from continuing. His voice took on a high-pitched, whiny form of mimicry as he went on. "How many people have you lured with a sad, sob story of how ' _Oh, I just can't control myself'_ or ' _I'm bad luck and hurt anyone who gets to close to me'_ or whatever excuse you have to make yourself feel better before leaving them in a metaphorical dumpster? Or hell, even a _literal_ one?"

Asriel was shaking. He was literally shaking, and there was nothing he could do to stop the words coming out of his mouth at this point. "You're some kind of predator, aren't you? I should've just called the police! But like an _idiot_ , I thought maybe I was wrong and you actually needed my help, and this is what you do to me. Why do I keep doing this? _You're right._ This world really _is_ kill or be killed! And it would be better if it just killed us both off! I just get hurt again and again…" Finally, Asriel's tirade degenerated into racking sobs, and he didn't care if the entire restroom heard him.

Of course, maybe the entire restroom _could_. Chara had, after all, told everyone else in it to fuck off.

As Asriel's sobs tapered off, he would realize that there was… silence. For once that evening, Chara wasn't speaking. And they were still _there_ , Asriel realized. He could see their black converse shoes under the wall of the stall.

Finally, they spoke. "I'm...I'm not a predator. I've never… look. I freaked the fuck out when I thought…" They took a couple breaths and started again. "Yeah, I'll admit, I'm a fucking edgelord sometimes, but I'm not a _rapist_." they said, their attitude making its way back into their voice briefly before they forced it away again. "I'm just someone who takes a joke way too far and then ruins all the parts of it I wasn't joking about. I've never kissed anyone who's said no. It's just…" they sighed, their voice deflating. "No one's ever said no. _I've_ never said no."

Asriel's voice still had an edge to it as he snapped, "That had _better_ be the truth."

"It is. Honest to fuck." they replied. "Look. Nobody has ever cared enough to wonder if I was okay. I've never had _anyone_ care enough about me to not make assumptions about my gender before, either. And, fuck, Asriel, if you still want to be my friend after this, I'll spend a _lifetime_ making up for this evening. Cross my heart."

Asriel's anger had spent itself, and so their words actually had some effect on him. He wanted to believe them. He really did, even after all that. On top of that, some small part of him did feel a little bad for some of the things _he'd_ said. What if Chara was right and the world really was as bad as they said it was? If that was even partially true, he didn't want to be just one more person who proved them right. He hated the way the world never gave anyone a second chance, and even if this was a third or fourth chance at this point, he still found that he wanted Chara to have the opportunity to fix the hurt they'd caused.

They had sounded sincere, anyway, and even if Chara could fake that, he wanted to at least believe they weren't _absolutely_ soulless. So, he asked, "You'd do that? For me?"

Chara replied, in the smallest voice he'd heard them use all night. "Even if you tell me to go away and never come back, I'll still make it up, whether it's to your face or _not_."

Asriel laced his fingers together to stop his paws from shaking. It almost worked. "You're not going to say anything hurtful again? Or humiliate me again?"

Chara snorted. "Heh. I'm not perfect. I'm not the best person. I'll fuck up. I'll fuck up a _lot_. But every time I do, I will make it up to you. That is an absolute promise. But… no, I won't intentionally humiliate you." They chuckled again and said, "Hell, I'll even wear the dress, if it'll help. Total seriousness there. Not even fucking with you."

Asriel chuckled. "If it makes you comfortable. I don't even mind wearing a dress. It's just that monsters get teased about that sort of thing a lot." A thought occurred to him. "...Do you...even know _why_ that comment hurt?"

There was another moment of silence, and then an answer. "...Gonna be honest with you here, I have no fucking clue."

Asriel didn't know if he believed that, but Chara had left it open for him to explain like they were five years old. He figured there wasn't any _more_ harm that could come from explaining their own insult back at them, and it might prove a point. "Uh. Monster wedding ceremonies often involve a lot of really beautiful and intricate robes, even for the men. People who don't know any better tend to give us a lot of heck about it."

"Oh." Chara said. "Well now I know that. I, uh, don't really know a whole lot about shit like that, so, sorry." Their voice sounded dejected enough that he believed them, especially when he looked down and saw their feet shuffling a little as if they were discomforted by the fact that their vaguely sexual joke had actually been something they hadn't intended.

Asriel sniffed and wiped his eyes. He wasn't quite ready to trust them, but at the very least he didn't think they were going to actively humiliate him any more that evening. "Okay. I believe you. I'm coming out now, okay?" he said, as he opened the stall and headed toward the sink to wash his face. Chara took a couple steps back to give him his space as he went to the sink and splashed a bit of water that could only generously be considered sanitary on his face and then wiped it off with his shirt.

The silence was still a little uncomfortable, and while Asriel knew it wasn't up to him to restore any camaraderie the two of them had built up with each other over the past hour or so, he at least wanted to find out if they were serious about making things better. He also wanted to satisfy his _own_ curiosity about them, so he looked over to them and said, "Okay. So, you want to make it up to me in the short term? I want to know something about you. Something _real_. No dodging, no evading, and no making jokes. Okay?"

Chara shrank a little under his gaze. "Fair." they said. It took them a moment to really work up to it, and they did have a look on their face that Asriel interpreted as embarrassment and discomfort, so he had least believed that _they_ believed they were trying to tell him something they would ordinarily hide. "I don't have a home. I don't have parents. I live in a car."

Asriel just took that in. Every one of those sentences demanded, at the very least, multiple follow-up questions and tons of explanation, and he still wasn't even really sure he believed them. And yet, they seemed genuine, like they had in the alley. When it was just them. Away from all the other people.

He spent a moment thinking about the implications of all of that as he wiped his face off with a paper towel. He kind of dreaded hearing what had happened to Chara to not only leave them without a place to stay, but also to have led to them living the way they were obviously living. And yet, there was curiosity as well. It was morbid curiosity, he knew, but that was still curiosity. He _had_ to know more about this new little insight into Chara. He tried to keep any accusation or disbelief out of his voice as he pressed for more information. "...Really?"

Chara shrugged. "Yeah. If school ever found out, they'd probably kick me out because of all the signatures I've forged."

"Oh, wow!" Asriel's eyes widened. "I don't think I could ever get away with something like that! I mean, I wouldn't be as good at it as you probably had to be. I'd get caught immediately." Being good at art was one thing, but being good enough at forgery to not get caught was another thing entirely. He once again re-evaluated Chara's statement that they weren't good at art and decided that particular detail, at least, had been a lie.

"It takes practice," they said, smiling a bit at his admiration. He knew that he shouldn't be encouraging blatant criminal activity, but he figured that if Chara had done those things anyway, the least he could do was admit that they had talent. Chara pushed off of the wall and walked toward the door of the restroom. "Yeah, not a lot of people can be as good as me." they added. "So, uh. The Charamobile's in the parking lot across the street. I mean, if you want proof," they said, and their voice took on a slightly sheepish tone that Asriel almost took to be actual real embarrassment.

It took about two seconds for Asriel to make up his mind. If this was a long-form setup to his abduction, at least it was a good one. "I'd love to see your car."

This seemed to catch them _totally_ by surprise. "Wait, really?" they said, their mouth hanging open. "You are _literally_ the first person who's ever said that to me."

Asriel shrugged. "I thought humans liked looking at cars." At least, there were several people at school who loved showing theirs off, as if they were physical representations of their own genitalia, giant icons of status and motorized sex growling and belching exhaust as they careened down the highway.

Chara just snickered. "Uh. My car… is not the kind of car one looks at for fun."

"Oh. Then it's more like.. the car you have fun _in_?" Asriel said, cautiously venturing into the realm of innuendo, testing the shallow end of the wide pool of double entendre in an attempt to prove to Chara that he was cool enough to be in the pool _at all_.

Chara outright laughed at that, and it was the first laugh that held genuine mirth that Asriel had heard from them all evening. " _Yeah_ it is," they said. "But actually, I mostly sleep in it."

Asriel frowned. When he was younger, his dad had tried to introduce him to the adventures of camping. It hadn't stuck, mostly because even with sleeping bags, sleeping on the ground hadn't ever appealed to him. He didn't know how that translated to the experience of sleeping in a _car_ , but the fact that he didn't know that actually made him reflect a bit on his own privilege, such as it were. "Is it comfortable?" he asked. "It can't be fun sleeping in a car if the cushions are too hard."

Chara laughed again, more restrained this time. "No. Not comfortable in the slightest. I'm on track for some serious back problems later in life." They walked toward the door of the restroom and held it open for Asriel. "Come on. I'll show you the Charamobile in all its glory."

_~~~_

As the two of them walked over to the parking lot, Chara said, "Well, whatever you're expecting out of this thing, I assure you that it won't live up to it." And what they ended up taking Asriel to was… something that had definitely seen better days. It wasn't a large car, it was a weird shade of pastel green, it had one mirror and part of a bumper held to it with duct tape, and it had the word 'Corolla' emblazoned on the back with chrome. And yet, in spite of or perhaps _because_ of the beating the vehicle had taken, it looked quite sturdy enough to be someone's temporary home. He glanced into one of the rear windows and spotted bags of chips in the back seat, along with empty wrappers, books, and a flashlight. There were also a couple of old suitcases, a bunch of clothes draped all over everything, a disassembled wooden rocking chair for some reason, and a small cooler that could be powered from the car's power connection. It was one more reminder of the idea of camping, though with a little more permanence to it. He knew then that whatever else Chara had bent the truth about that evening, this most definitely was something they _hadn't_ lied about.

Chara was looking at the ground and was actually blushing. "It's… you can say it. It's pretty lame, isn't it."

"I don't think it's lame at all," Asriel said with a smile on his face. "Green is actually my favorite color!" He held up his wrist to show Chara a green and yellow rubber bracelet wrapped around it. It was part of his concert attire and had been for as long as he'd been going to concerts, a memento of the first show that he and Undyne had gone to together. "Well, green and yellow, but green a little more, I think."

Chara smiled. "Yeah, but I mean.. well, you weren't wrong about it being a shitty bed," they said and gestured to the driver's seat, which was the only place in the car that wasn't occupied by Chara's worldly possessions. It could be reclined, but this fact didn't change Asriel's initial impression of the car as being a terrible sleeping enclosure. The seat looked hard and oddly shaped, and the cushioning was rough and torn.

"You don't have anywhere other than that to sleep?" he asked. "You can't just get a sleeping bag or a pillow or something? And maybe clear space to lie in the back seats?"

Chara looked at the back seat, which was full enough that it was probably hard to see out the back window. And then looked back at Asriel, pointedly.

"...Yeah, I see what you mean," he said. "I guess you don't have money for a hotel, either." Asriel frowned as little tangled-up tendrils of worry began to writhe inside of his core. Whatever money Chara had, they must have needed to use it on food. "How much is the cheapest hotel around here? I mean, they're not that bad, are they?"

Chara shrugged. "Month of food." They looked to the side and added, "If it's ramen."

Asriel looked down as well. He knew that was just one more thing he had never had to think about. What must it be like to have to think of money in terms of 'number of meals'? How many meals was a night of sleep in an actual bed worth? He didn't know. He would probably never know.

"You don't know any friends, either?" he asked, though he figured he knew that answer already too.

Chara confirmed that by giving a chuckle. "Yeah, I know some _friends_. Pretty well, actually. For a couple days at a time. Then I'm right back here." they said. "I'm not proud of it or anything. But Asriel? I won't lie to you. If you ask me something, I'll answer it. You wanted to know something _real_? Well, here you go. This. This is real. This is my life."

"So you _really_ don't have anywhere to go," Asriel said. Another brief thought entered his mind, and he knew he wasn't offering any new advice to Chara but he had to add it regardless. "I guess the homeless shelters are full too."

"I've bounced around from place to place," Chara said, awkwardly. "And anyway, I live in my car, right? Can't I go literally anywhere I want? Life is an open road, and all that shit?"

"Still, it's dangerous living out here like this," Asriel murmured. "I hear horror stories of people getting kidnapped and trapped in trafficking rings and such. I don't want that for you. Maybe I can ask Undyne if she has room for you to stay? I know she's probably still mad at you, but if I can explain things, I'm sure she'd understand and she could help…" He didn't know if _any_ of that was actually true. He had no idea what Undyne had said to them after Asriel had run off. For all he knew, Undyne had threatened to choke them out or something.

The fact that Chara didn't turn him down immediately despite any probable threats of violence from Undyne just kind of made it obvious how dire their situation actually was. If their past attitude were any indication, they had to be almost pathologically self-reliant, and he knew that something like that was pretty hard to get away from. And yet, the offer made their face soften and their red eyes widen a little. "You'd… do that. For _me_."

Asriel looked at them, then, as the tendrils of worry wrapping around his stomach solidified into concern. Not _pity_ , but actual _concern_. "I can't just leave you like this."

Chara sighed. "Look. I have a knife in the console and another one in the glove compartment. And a rep for using them on anyone who tries to take what isn't being offered," they said. "And anyway, nobody would ever want to steal this beat up thing or anything in it." They kicked the tire of the Charamobile, as if to demonstrate. It did not immediately fall apart, but from the looks of the car, it was a near thing.

"And what if your car breaks down?" Asriel asked, his eyes narrowing. "How will you get to school?"

"I'll walk!" Chara said, and then got a sheepish look on their face. "...Uphill? Both ways? In the snow?" They sighed and leaned against the dubiously-steady Charamobile. "Okay, okay, the point's been made." they said, reaching out to tap one of his short, pointed horns.

Asriel actually startled at the touch. He froze up, his heart skipped a beat, and then he realized that all Chara did was touch the tip of the horn. He was used to being much more invasively mocked for his appearance. And then, after a moment, it registered that Chara had made a joke. Sort of a joke. Barely a joke. "...Hah. Haha. Chara…" he shook his head. "That was.. really terrible, you know that?" And then his face got serious. "Um. Could you.. please try not to touch my horns like that again? Unless I tell you I'm okay with it?"

Chara bit their lip. "Sorry. I told you I'd fuck up. But thanks for telling me. I won't touch them again unless you're okay with it."

Asriel's heart returned to its normal speed and cadence. "Thanks." he said with a small, relieved sigh. "Sorry, I get nervous."

Chara nodded. "I'm the one with two knives you know about and another three you don't. If anyone gets being 'a little nervous', it's me."

The solidified worry-turned-concern resolved itself further into a little ball of spikes that pressed up against his diaphragm. "Yeah, that sounds really rough. I'm, uh. Pretty concerned, you know? About you. About you being out here like this."

Chara responded with that dismissive chuckle that Asriel was quickly realizing was a characteristic of theirs that they exhibited when they were pushed a bit out of their comfort zone. "I don't want to put your friend out or anything. I've lived in this thing for the past…" Their cough muffled the exact number of weeks, months, or hopefully not years that Chara had lived in the car. "...And I can live there until I figure out something better. I'll be fine. I promise."

Asriel wasn't so sure about that. He did realize, though, that if he kept pushing Chara on this issue, there was a very real possibility that Chara wouldn't accept any _future_ help he would offer either. He knew firsthand that was how stubbornness worked. Still, though, he had to let them know the offer was there, whether they took it or not. "Are you sure about that?"

Chara nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure. Thanks, though. For being concerned without trying to push me into doing something. I know where the shelters are. I just feel safer in my car."

"Okay…" Asriel was still worried, though he was at least content to let the matter drop for now. Of course, his anxiety brain kept screaming at him that if something was going to happen to Chara, it would naturally be that night, because that would make him feel horrible about it for the rest of his life.

But then, he had to remind himself that this wasn't about _him_ , and that the universe had plenty of other ways of screwing him over if it felt inclined.

He held out his paw to Chara. "Want to go back to the concert with me? We can catch the last songs together."

Chara looked at his paw for a brief moment before taking it and gently squeezing it. "Yeah. I'd really like that." The gesture was honest. It wasn't the joking act of earlier, and it wasn't anything...untoward. It was just the need for physical contact that everyone, human and monster, felt at one point or another in their life. At least, that's how it seemed to Asriel, and he had a feeling that he would probably be able to tell at this point if Chara was going to play another prank on him. It was just one more feeling he had that the pair of them were starting to become more connected than either of them expected.

_~~~_

They made their way back across the street to the venue, where Asriel could clearly see Undyne waiting right outside the front entrance. To call the expression on her face 'disapproving' was underselling it by entire orders of magnitude. It was the kind of expression that could stop armies in their tracks or make a professional boxer think twice before approaching her. There was no calm before the storm of that expression, there was only the promise of inevitable and unavoidable violence. And the target of that impending nuclear strike was Chara.

To their credit, they were not totally oblivious to their own danger. Their spine straightened, their hands tensed, and the first word out of their mouth was, "Gulp."

It took a second for Asriel to process that. He glanced over to Chara out of the corner of his eye. "Did you just…."

Chara started to speak very, very quickly then as their fight-or-flight response kicked in. Asriel noticed that their vocabulary seemed to increase proportional to the level of fear they were feeling. "See, actually gulping doesn't really properly convey the horror of my-"

Their rambling was cut off as Undyne placed a hand on Chara's shoulder and gripped it. _Hard_. "Hey. Az. They been giving you any shit?"

Asriel knew that he had about five seconds to diffuse this situation somehow, but he really didn't know how to do it. Undyne's anger was a tsunami, impossible to stop once it got going, at least until it crashed into everything around it. The best he could do was try and make it run out of steam as best he could. "N-no!" he stammered. "They were just showing me their car!"

Undyne narrowed her gaze at Chara.

Chara was still in the throes of a shockingly coherent stress response. "Yeah! _Yeah!_ He wanted to see it! We're cool now! Super cool! Right, Az?" They frowned and looked to the side in a nervous gesture as Undyne's grip tightened on their shoulder like a vice. "No, no, that's all wrong. Let me try that again." They searched around for a suitable nickname as if _that_ were going to be the thing that saved them in that moment. "Az? El? No… Ree. Ree! Yeah, see, me an' Ree are super cool now!"

Asriel tried to pry his friend's grip from Chara's shoulder. "Undyne, _Please_." Asriel tried his best to get the look on his face that his mom always got when she was trying to convince someone of something they really didn't want to do. "I mean it. They're not going to hurt me. I made _sure_ of it."

Once it registered to Undyne that she was actually fighting against _Asriel_ and not _Chara_ , her eye widened and her grip relaxed. "Oh. Well then." She released her grip from Chara's shoulder and gave it a couple of pats. Which just made Chara wince again, as that probably didn't really feel great on top of the bruising they were likely to have. "Encore's about to start. I bet they'll play some jams off the first EP." Undyne said, and gestured for Asriel and, by extension, Chara to follow her back in. Asriel did catch the brief second that Undyne's eye held Chara's nervous gaze in a very clear statement that Chara's stay of execution could be canceled at any time Undyne saw fit.

"Come on, Chara." Asriel said, smiling as if he hadn't just given his fishy friend a death glare two seconds ago. Inwardly, he felt like that member of the bomb squad who had just cut the _red_ wire and been rewarded with the lives of himself and everyone around him.

Chara just kind of collapsed against him and grabbed his paw with both of their hands. "Fuck _me_ , I think tonight's gonna be burned into my mind for like, _ever_." they said, finally getting both their breathing and their vocabulary under control.

Asriel chuckled a little, feeling the adrenaline leaving his own bloodstream. "I mean. Me too, though I hope it's not for totally bad reasons on _your_ part. Because… despite everything, this has been… _good_." he said. He realized a couple seconds later that he actually _meant_ it. The night had been weird and scary and frustrating and maddeningly unpredictable, but all of those things combined to break through the _same_ -ness that he had been expecting from everything in his life.

Chara looked up at him. "I mean. Met a new friend, almost got murdered, still breathing…" they said. "...And hey. I have a reason to show up to school tomorrow. So there's that."

This caused Asriel's heart to skip a beat again. Despite everything, Chara's insistence that they still wanted to spend time with him really made him feel like he was _worth_ spending time with. Even if that feeling wouldn't last past the end of the concert, he was going to ride that for as long as his depression allowed him to. "Yeah. I mean. I really hope I see you there. I'll be really disappointed if I don't. So please do?"  
  
Another of those rare, honest smiles graced Chara's lips. "Deal. Now come on. Let's go in there and party like our lives are ending."  
  
Asriel laughed. "Or beginning."

Chara nodded. "Yeah. Maybe that, too."

_~~~_

The encore _did_ end up being a couple of jams from the band's early days, and when they hit a particularly fast and heavy tempo, Asriel noticed that Chara's dancing was even more intense than it had been _before_ interacting with him. He did note that they _weren't_ trying to find someone to grind against the entire time, and while they _did_ stay close to him, they kept just enough distance from him to make sure his personal space wasn't threatened.

When the lights came up and the sound crew started to tear down, the pair found themselves standing to the side of the main entrance while Undyne went to get her car. Chara just kind of rocked back and forth on their heels, suddenly seeming to be a little bashful. "So. Um. See you... uh, tomorrow? Friend?"

Asriel felt his mouth curling into a smile. "Yeah." he said. "Hey, Chara?"

Chara's face was the absolute picture of eager anticipation. "Yeah?"

Asriel hesitated for a moment, before continuing. "Despite um.. everything that happened earlier, I don't think you're a bad person. You just… you did some bad things today. It hurt. A lot. But I still think you can change." He took another deep breath. He didn't know what effect the things he was saying would have, if any, but he had to try. He had to know that he had tried to make a difference in the way Chara thought about things. "So, um, if this is like a play, and you're just pretending to be my friend…" he smiled, "Then I'm glad we lasted this long to enjoy those last couple of songs together. If I don't see you tomorrow at school, I'll be disappointed. Or, I could see you and you could decide I'm not cool enough to hang around you. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened. Heck, we could even be enemies from now on and that's just the way life will have turned out. But what I'm saying is that I won't forget tonight. I won't forget what we talked about, or how you actually cared enough to apologize to me and listen to why what you said hurt. I won't forget that you showed me something real. And, no matter what, I won't forget this one moment you made me happy."

Chara met his gaze with their own. As much as he could map any expression of theirs back to a real emotion, he thought he saw all the surprise, fear, joy, and sadness all contained within their red eyes. They nodded, then, and said, "You just met me, Asriel, so you don't know this yet. But you'll find out. When I make a promise, that promise contains all of me. The truth, the lies, the smiles and tears, and everything in between. So yeah. I'll make up for the bad shit. And maybe there'll be some good shit in there too, to make it all worth it." They laughed. "So, I'll just start by keeping that promise to show up at school tomorrow. 'Cause all the rest of that shit is too heavy for tonight. 'Kay?"

Asriel nodded, and as Undyne pulled the car up and gestured for him to get in, he said, "'Kay. We start from there." He wanted to say more. He wanted to _do_ more. He didn't _want_ them to be alone and homeless and hungry and a million other things he had never _once_ had to think about in his own life. But he couldn't do anything about it at that moment. He could only start trying...tomorrow. So, he gave them a smile, and said, "Well, see you!"

As the car started to pull away, he did glance back to see Chara, standing there by the curb, with a smile on their face.

_~~~ Chara ~~~_

The smile was frozen on Chara's face long after they had stopped feeling the thing that put it there to begin with. They _had_ felt something when they were near that boy, and that was more than they could say on most days. Even when they were sharing a bed with someone, they didn't really _feel_ anything. And yet here they were, just wanting to be in someone's _presence_. Fully clothed. Without even kissing.  
  
The feeling had even persisted a few minutes after his friend had driven off with him in the passenger seat. As they walked back across the street toward the parking lot containing the Charamobile, they reflected on the fact that not only had they felt a degree of _warmth_ that night, they had felt a number of _other_ things that they had not felt in a very, very long time.  
  
_Fear._  
  
Shame.  
  
Sadness.  
  
Regret.  
  
And now it was over, and they didn't even _really_ know if they would ever get that feeling back again. They were going to go to school the next day. Of course, they were _always_ going to do that. It was an honest shot at a real future. At survival. But now they had a compelling reason to try a little harder than they ordinarily were going to.

They sighed and approached their car. Their keys were gripped in their clenched fist. They didn't grip the keys between their fingers like most people would have done. That was a great way to get their hand cut open if they ever had to actually _hit_ someone. No, instead they gripped them in a closed fist, like a knife. Better that way.  
  
_More familiar._  
  
They _had_ their knife, of course, but the keys would be faster if some asshole were hiding behind or under their car. They looked from side to side, then knelt down and checked under the car. No one. Good. They'd never actually had someone try to cut their ankle from under a car, but hey, it's what _they_ would do if they ever had to ambush someone.

_All clear._

_Keys in the lock. Turn to the side, Open the door. Slip in. Lock the door. Safety._

_Home._

_Yeah._

_Sure._

_Home._

"...I'm really...fucked up, aren't I." they said out loud, even if they were the only one around to hear it. They didn't, as a general rule, talk to themself out of nowhere like that. Not really. What they normally talked to was the writhing, slithering, slimy, disgusting, impulsive, and vile thing inside of them.

The thing that was demanding to be the sole focus of their attention right then.

They looked in the rear view mirror of their car, meeting their own reflected gaze.

"Is it.. still me?"

_Since when have you been the one in control?_

"Despite everything… is it still me?"

_You made your choice a long time ago._

They curled up in the driver's seat of the car, arms wrapped around knees and hugging them close to their chest. "Oh. I guess… I guess I don't deserve his kindness after all." they said, letting that dark thing consume them once more as tears started to fall.

_~~~  
Before you push me away let me try to change your mind._

_~~~  
_


	2. My Soul to Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of school, and Asriel is pleasantly surprised when Chara actually shows up. But if they weren't lying about being in school with him, what else were they not lying about? How can Asriel possibly help someone whose problems he has no experience with and can't even begin to understand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for the 'first day of school' scene, we get to see a few of the other students that Chara and Asriel will be interacting with. Additionally, we get to see Asriel start to realize that the world isn't quite as black and white as he previously believed it was. While Asriel is still riding the high of a new friendship, we also get to see him start to wonder how he can possibly reconcile his beliefs of the way the world should be with the reality of how the world is.
> 
> Soundtrack suggestions for this scene:
> 
> Automatic Loveletter - Save Me  
> Arcade Fire - Creature Comfort  
> The Creepshow - My Soul to Keep  
> Alkaline Trio - Draculina

~~~

_could I ever bring myself to forgive my past_

_and if I never did, I can't promise it will last_

~~~

@RadicalDreemurr:

"So, my ears and horns are intact, so I guess the concert didn't go too badly. I even made a new friend! I hope. I mean. They SAID they would be at school today so we'll see?

TV tells me that most kids who show up to high school are worried about being stuffed into lockers or having their lunch money stolen. I only _hope_ my day goes so well.

Ah well. #CarnePorLaMachina"

_~~~ Asriel ~~~_

For the first time in his life, Asriel seriously considered skipping school.

This had nothing to do with the degree with which he valued a good education. It was all the _other_ factors that went into it. Sure, this was going to be his first day at Curie High, but enough people were going to be there who went to the same middle school he had gone to that he was absolutely certain to be recognized. For some people, this would have been a comfort, and for others it would have been an annoyance. For Asriel, this was somewhere between an anxiety trigger and a source of tangible, real fear.

He probably actually _would_ have skipped if he weren't overwhelmingly curious about the human he had met the previous night. He had, of course, considered that they were lying to him about which high school they were going to attend. That just fueled his curiosity even more, because if they _were_ lying, he really would have to wonder _why_.

Once he was actually in the building and starting to orient himself, he was reminded why skipping had been such an attractive prospect. He was tall enough to be extremely conspicuous, even in a hallway that seemed to be an equal distribution of monsters and humans. This just made him self-conscious, especially as he started to pick out recognizable faces. He glanced at his schedule to see where his first-period class was being held. At the moment, the location was far more important than the actual course content. Even though he really didn't relish the thought of waking up to _algebra_ every morning for a year, the fact that he only had to walk down a short hallway to get there from the front entrance of the building was a boon that could outweigh the curse of math that involved letters.

He thought he heard someone call out at him and laugh. Whether it was in his head or not, it made him shuffle a little faster down the hall and duck into the classroom without seeing who it was. He sincerely doubted his tormentors had received some grand epiphany over the course of the summer, and so laughter only held the promise of humiliation and pain for him. Luckily, the nearly-full algebra classroom only held a few people he recognized, and out of those people he didn't see any who had ever given him a _huge_ amount of heck.

Well. Correction. He saw _one_.

The goat monster's eyes widened a little when he recognized the flash of fiery red hair that belonged to the human he had met last night. Chara. _That_ was a name he would not be forgetting anytime soon. Part of him was extremely nervous at the prospect of seeing the wild human in a normal setting, though the other part of him was excited to see them _at all_. It meant they had told him more than just one truth the previous night. To add to his slightly uplifted mood, he saw that there was a seat empty next to them. He walked over to it, shrugged out of his backpack, and sat down.

They appeared about as differently from how they had presented themself the previous night as they possibly could without the influence of special effects or surgery. Their hair and face were the same, even down to the reddening of their cheeks that he suspected didn't have all that much to do with embarrassment or exertion. Their clothing, however, had taken a complete turn. Gone were the ripped jeans, tank top, and calf-high laced boots. In place of those things were a pair of khaki slacks, crisply-pressed, a pastel-green polo shirt, and tan slip-on loafers. They were, effectively, the perfect prep, attired in the trappings of golfers and small-business-owners everywhere.

And right up until the point where he sat down next to them, he noticed they looked _bored as hell_. Well, he thought, that was valid. Math wasn't his interest either, it was just one of those silly requirements for graduation.

He unzipped his backpack and took out his notebook and pencil. As he did, he said to them, "Howdy, Chara! It's me, Asriel! Do you remember me? From the concert?" The little voice in his brain that judged every single thing he said took this moment to inform him that if they didn't remember him, they had the memory capacity of a lobotomized goldfish.

Chara glanced over to him. "I know last night was _kinda_ eventful, but honestly… do you really think I'd forget you?"

Asriel felt his heart jump a couple inches in his chest at that affirmation. This manifested as what he could only assume was an incredibly goofy grin and a small joke, which was a thing that the judgmental part of his brain noted that he did constantly. "Golly, I sure am glad. I mean, it sure would have been embarrassing for me if you didn't."

Chara snorted. At least their mannerisms didn't change a lot with their clothing. It didn't occur to him yet that it was possible they _did_ and that he was seeing something beneath all that. "Embarrassing for _you_?" they said. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure you probably _wanted_ to forget _me_."

"Are you kidding?" Asriel replied. "You were all I could _think_ about last night!" That statement _was_ true, though he had given it the most positive spin he could. He had actually spent most of the night either wondering if he had made a complete idiot of himself or wondering if _they_ were actually going to _be_ at school in the morning.

His words did seem to have an effect on Chara, though. Their eyes widened in what he was realizing was genuine surprise. "No shit? And you _still_ wanted to sit next to me?" they said, looking around the room. There weren't many empty seats, but there _were_ a _few_.

Asriel nodded. "Yeah? I can't see why I wouldn't. We eventually got along pretty well, right? Classes are better if you have a friend in them."

Chara eyed him. "Yeah, but… I mean isn't your friend Undyne in here?" They looked around again as if there were any chance _at all_ that they could have missed Undyne's presence in the classroom.

Asriel shrugged. "She's not actually in many classes with me. Besides, believe it or not, she's actually a little bit disruptive to an educational environment." Asriel was pretty surprised that any learning at all could go on with Undyne in the room, as she tended to try and get people to 'have more fun'. This usually involved throwing things at them.

"You… don't say." Chara said flatly. They scanned the room as the last few students wandered in. The final two open seats were taken up by a tall, thin skeleton in a red polo shirt and blue shorts and a shorter, rounder one in a blue hoodie. Chara's eyes narrowed. "Hey, they look kind of familiar…"

Asriel grinned. "Oh. Man. We have those two in our class? Heh, you're in for a treat."

The shorter skeleton sat down and immediately lay his head on the desk. It appeared as if he were going to just fall asleep right then and there, except that the taller one reached over and shook him by the shoulders. "SANS! GET UP AND PAY ATTENTION! CLASS IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!"

Chara winced. "...For the love of fuck." they muttered, pressing their palm against their forehead, right between their eyes. " _That's_ going to be _real_ special first thing in the morning."

The shorter skeleton, Sans, was still for just long enough to make it obvious that he was consciously taking that long to respond. Then, he lifted his head. "Huh? What? Oh. Right. First day." he said.

"SANS!" the taller one said. "IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT FALL ASLEEP IN CLASS! I CANNOT HAVE YOU MAKING ME LOOK BAD!"

He seemed on the verge of continuing his tirade when Sans gave him a grin that would be at home on a cat that just found a room full of canaries. "No problem, bro. Math is my best subject. You can _count_ on me."

Chara just blinked. "Oh. My. Gee." they said.

Asriel chuckled. "Yeah, it's kinda like this all year in any class they're in. I mean, sure, it's disruptive, but at least it's never _boring_." Asriel looked over at the two skeletons and said, "Howdy! I don't know if you remember me from last year, but I saw you around Lovelace Middle School?"

Sans grinned. "Yeah, I remember you. Asriel, right? Hey, maybe since we're both in here, we could be alge-bros." he winked.

Asriel tried, and failed, to refrain from groaning. "I mean, I'm okay with studying together, as long as you don't expect me to make puns all the time. I'm kind of bad at them." He inwardly wondered if Sans was actually going to stay awake in class for more than three total days all year.

Papyrus grinned. "AH, SANS WOULD BE THE IDEAL STUDY PARTNER. AS ALGEBRA IS MERELY THE SUBSTITUTION OF ONE THING FOR ANOTHER THING, THIS WILL POSSIBLY COME NATURALLY TO SANS. HE SUBSTITUTES NONSENSE FOR ACTUAL WORDS WITH DISTRESSING FREQUENCY."

Chara just chuckled. "Hey, it's nice to meet both of you. You seem to know Ree here okay, so that makes you pretty cool in my book. And don't worry. I'll work on him about the puns. He just hasn't realized they're the highest form of humor yet."

Sans grinned. "Going to have him learn by association?"

Papyrus sighed. "SANS. ONE MUST ALREADY KNOW ALGEBRA TO GET THAT JOKE."

Asriel sighed as well. At least Chara was fitting in so far, and they hadn't even made a single lewd joke yet. Was it possible the whole thing had been an act? He didn't know. It seemed he was just going to have to wait and see how the rest of the day went.

_~~~_

"Well well well. Greetings, students!" A small bird-like monster with a blue triangle for a head was literally sitting atop a podium and chirping at them. "It's nice to see so much enthusiasm for mathematics! Especially you! All the way in the back!" It was unclear whether he was gesturing to Sans or to Chara, both of whom had their heads firmly on their desks. "I'm Mr. Tweetsbaum, and I am proud to have been the Algebra and Geometry teacher for five years at Curie High…"

Chara muttered under their breath, "...And thank you for narrating my early-morning nap this year." Asriel sort of cringed as he heard this. Chara had made allusions to how they weren't exactly a great student, but if they were just going to sleep through class all the time just like Sans seemed to, he didn't know what he was going to do. Even if Chara wasn't a teacher's _pet_ , exactly, he had hoped they at least wouldn't be a teacher's _pest_.

Mr. Tweetsbaum continued. "I do, of course, realize that some of you already know each other, but as I place great value in being able to put names to faces, I think that since I introduced myself to you, you should introduce yourselves to me. Just your name will be fine, but if you want to include interesting facts or preferred pronouns, you may do so here." Asriel was realizing that this particular teacher was the sort that was likely to speak quickly and in run-on sentences. This was okay as long as he also stayed on topic, but again, he would have to see where that went.

There were a number of students who did not particularly want to stand out. Asriel was one of them, so when the calling out of names came around to him, he simply mumbled, "Asriel Dreemurr." This got a couple nods of recognition, but not much else. He was fine with that. All in all, he did not _want_ to be worth noticing. Going through an entire year _not_ being noticed would be an improvement over how things had been for him in the past.

There were others, though, who did not share his philosophy.

"FEAR NOT, FELLOW STUDENTS! WHILE YOU MAY NOT KNOW MY NAME NOW, YOU SHALL SOON HEAR IT RESOUNDING THROUGHOUT THESE MAGNIFICENT HALLS OF LEARNING! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL EXCEL IN ALL OF MY CLASSES AND BECOME THE MOST POPULAR CELEBRITY IN ALL THE SCHOOL!"

This was rewarded with an eye-roll from Chara and a "Cool story, bro." from Sans.

"Hey, y'all, Scott Bradley here. You may remember me from my guest appearances in a number of award-winning jokes, such as _your mom_."

Chara snorted with laughter at the same time as Mr. Tweetsbaum chastised the student by clicking his tongue and saying, "That will be _quite_ enough of that. Moving _right_ along…"

"Sans. If 'doing the bare minimum' were an olympic sport, I would qualify."

This time, Asriel rolled his eyes. He desperately hoped that Sans and Chara would _not_ be spending a lot of time together. He didn't know which one would be a worse influence on the other, but he could just tell the results would be bad news.

Finally, the ceremonial stating of names got back down the row to Chara's place in the room. They raised a hand, lazily, and waved, as their other hand continued propping their chin up into something that passed for an upright position. "Charade." they said. "'Sup. They-slash-them. Or whatever, I guess. Not picky."

Oh, Asriel thought. That was what 'Chara' was short for. He thought it was kind of an odd name even among the human names he knew, though he admittedly didn't know much about human naming traditions. He glanced around the room again and saw that a significant portion of the room was eyeing Chara. He wondered why. Their red hair was quite striking, so that must have been it. They had never said what middle school they went to, but if they had been local at all the previous year they had to know at least someone, right?

The rest of the class was something that even Asriel had to admit that he wanted to sleep through. It was typical first day stuff, such as class expectations, handing out books, and going over a high-level list of what they would be studying and when exams would be.

When Mr. Tweetsbaum dismissed them, Chara stood up and gravitated toward Asriel. "Oh my _fuck_ , if the rest of this day is this mind-numbing, there is no _way_ I'm going to be able to pay attention to it all."

Asriel shrugged. "It's the first day. There's not much to pay attention _to_." he said.

Chara looked up at him, their eyes narrowing a little in an expression that Asriel didn't really know how to place. Then, they shook their head. "You don't get it." they said, without elaboration. Then they held their schedule up. "Any of these jive with what you've got?"

Asriel was about to ask what it was, exactly, that he didn't get but found himself sidetracked by the realization that he actually got to spend most of the day with Chara. "Yeah! I mean, English, Biology, and Art. Not the rest." But five classes. That was most of the day. Plus lunch. His heart didn't really have the capacity to soar, but at least it made a couple feeble little jumps and flapped its wings a bit. It was the second day in a row he'd felt _anything at all_ , and that was kind of an amazing thing.

"Huh." Chara said. "Well hey. That's pretty cool. Let's go!" they nudged him and stopped just short of wrapping one of their arms around his. Part of him wished they _had_ , though most of him would have been massively embarrassed at the display of affection and, furthermore, knew that both of them would probably get in trouble for it. Still, as far as days went, it wasn't a bad start.

_~~~_

The next class that the two of them had together was Biology, and it was at this point that Asriel noticed that Chara's statement about their ability to pay attention was more or less accurate. He may not have paid _too_ much attention if they hadn't specifically mentioned it, but since they had, it was something he couldn't really ignore. It started with them just doodling things in their notebook to keep from nodding off to sleep. As the class went on, this started to evolve into twirling their pencil between their fingers, tapping the eraser on the desk in increasingly elaborate rhythms, and casting little glances around the room every time someone made the slightest noise. On top of that, they always seemed to be fidgeting, moving one of their legs, shifting their sitting position, and generally just in a constant state of motion. It wasn't _disruptive_ , per se, it was just _noticeable_.

It didn't help that their teacher, Mr. Gaster, had a voice that could only be described as 'gleefully monotone'. Even _Asriel_ was about to zone out at the end, though he did make it through. It was at that point, though, that their luck regarding first-day homework ran out.

"Tonight, I would like everyone to write a short paper." he said in his droll voice. Collective groans filled the room as he wrote the assignment on the board with his bone-white hands. "Oh come now. It will _only_ be one page this time. And it's really very simple. All you have to do is tell me _everything_ you love about biology. Or, as an alternative, you may tell me everything you _hate_ about biology. Do whichever of the two is easiest for you. My anticipation is positively _unbounded_."

The tone of voice with which he delivered this last line informed everyone in the room that his anticipation did, in fact, have bounds.

As they filed out of the room, Chara fell into step beside Asriel. "Wonder how much detail he wants." they said with a sigh. "I mean. 'A Page' is pretty non-specific."

Asriel smiled a little. "I'm pretty sure Mr. Gaster is Sans' dad. Given that, I bet we can do as little as possible to technically fill a page and be fine." It made sense to him. He did neglect to mention that this would mean that Mr. Gaster was _also_ Papyrus' dad, meaning he would also be used to enthusiasm. He had the feeling that encouraging Chara to clear the _lowest_ bar would be the limit of his possible influence on his new friend. "I mean a page is about two or three paragraphs if you write big enough, and a paragraph is about five sentences. If you break it down like that, it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Chara raised an eyebrow. "Oh, sure, but those could be five _incredibly_ detailed sentences we're talking about here."

A short, pale human with freckled cheeks overheard their conversation and decided to inject a few comments. "Well, it depends on whether Mr. Gaster is expecting Dickens or Hemingway, you know?" The human's voice kind of sounded like the personification of 'wind through the reeds', but even so, it was relatively easy to hear what was being said over the ever-present noise of the hallway. They had short messy jet-black hair, and large purple-rimmed glasses adorned their green eyes. Their polo shirt matched the same eggplant color of their glasses, and they wore loose blue jeans with frayed knees.

Chara didn't even miss a beat. "Well, considering how hard biology fucked _me_ , I'm okay with giving it the Dickens." Asriel pinched the bridge of his nose. There went Chara's streak of _not_ making inappropriate comments.

The human replied, straight-faced, "Well, if you're going the Dickens way, you're going to need a lot of semicolons."

Chara just looked at this kid for a moment, trying to process the absolute lack of response there. "Holy shit." they said. "You took me literally."

The human nodded. "Well, I'm not going to look a gift paper in the mouth. I heard Mr. Gaster can be pretty tough, so my advice to you is that if you're given an easy assignment like this, go Hemingway. I'm Riley, by the way. He-him pronouns." The human apparently named Riley held out his hand in the general direction of both Chara and Asriel in an offer of greeting.

Asriel grasped his hand and gave it a gentle shake. Chara was a little more hesitant, though they followed Asriel's example and grasped Riley's hand in their own, slightly harder handshake. "...Chara. They-them. Uh. You sure you wanna be this close to me? You don't know where I've been, after all."

Riley shrugged. "I don't really pay attention to social hierarchies in school. It's hard to make time for that when you're reading disturbing science shit the teacher probably won't cover for eons, if at all. It's not like you're an invasive parasite and I'm the fish or insect you plan to brainwash."

Chara just looked at him, their mouth hanging slightly open. "Wait a fuck. _What_ did you just say?"

Riley smiled. "People think that zombie movies are ridiculous, but there really _are_ brainwashing parasites out there! They just usually infest things that aren't humans or monsters."

"Huh. No shit." Chara said. "...I mean, that's cool and all, but it's also _weird as fuck_."

"Haha, I guess I went a bit too far. I never shut up about the odd things I keep finding. Feel free to stop me anytime!" Riley kept talking as the three of them reached Asriel's locker. He halfway expected them to keep walking as he stopped to get the books he needed for his next class, but they saw that he stopped and didn't venture too far. There was this sensation Asriel was feeling as he watched the two humans interact that he couldn't really place. It felt kind of like a small squadron of pixies using needles as rapiers were assaulting the area of his torso right below his ribs. He made a mental note to actually draw that when he got home, which was his way of just not thinking about what might be _causing_ it.

When he finished rearranging his books, he shut his locker and walked toward the two humans. Riley was continuing on the same conversational thread. "You know, it's actually harder to be a parasite than anything else. I mean, you're this tiny thing living in an environment where everything is out to kill you. Did you know that if it weren't for the parasites that control fish, predators like cranes wouldn't get anything to eat? Yeah, the parasites are what cause the fish to get dumb enough to swim near the surface. They'd be too smart otherwise. Pretty freaky, but _super_ interesting!"

Chara chuckled and rested a hand on Riley's shoulder. "Believe it or not, dude, I have a _pretty_ solid handle on what it's like being a small thing in a place where everyone's out to kill me."

Riley chuckled at that. "I really wish I were clever or strong like that. All I can do is just read, really."

Chara gave a quick reply. "Well. You're lucky. You've never _had_ to be." They were about to continue that statement, but then they glanced over at Asriel. When they caught his eye, they raised an eyebrow in a questioning sort of expression.

Asriel immediately got so self-conscious under Chara's gaze that it was all he could do to not drop his books and pull his ears down over his face. Instead, he coughed and said, "Hey, uh, I'm pretty sure we have a class that we need to get to, right?"

Riley startled in the same manner that a cat did when someone shook a jarful of pennies. "Whoa, snap! I better get moving!" he said, fumbling with his books and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "Spanish is like, all the way on the other side of the school! Uh, catch you later Chara! Asriel!" he nodded to both of them before taking off in the closest thing to a dead run that a scrawny kid with presumably little to no athletic experience could manage.

Asriel coughed again and started walking. Their next class wasn't as far away as Riley's had to be, so they could take their time at least slightly. Every couple of seconds, he glanced down at Chara nervously. What had he done that they had been scrutinizing so hard? He didn't know. Humans were hard enough for him to read, and even though he still barely _knew_ Chara, he was discovering that they were even more difficult to pin down than most.

Thankfully, or at least _partially_ thankfully, he didn't have to wait very long. Chara glanced up at him. "What in the hell was that, back there?" they said, and even though they didn't sound angry, there was at least a slight edge to their tone.

Asriel's heart started to thump a little faster in his chest as he tried to figure out what they meant. "What was, uh, _what_?" he said, even adding an involuntary nervous chuckle to the end of his question.

"That look. Back there." they said.

Asriel hadn't even realized he _had_ a look, though he wasn't used to people noticing his facial expressions at all. Maybe he _had_ given them a look. He certainly couldn't place the feeling he'd gotten when he saw Chara and Riley talking, so he didn't know what his face could have been doing then. "Uh, what look?" he asked, hoping for some clarification.

"Okay, so. I've gotten pretty good at catching looks, and what you were giving me back there was definitely a _look_. Capital 'L'."

Well, that did actually clear up the general question for Asriel, even though he still didn't know what was wrong. "I… don't know. Uh, I won't do it again, whatever it was."

Chara looked up at him, just seeming to ponder him in his entirety for a brief couple of seconds. Those piercing red eyes bored into him. It crossed Asriel's mind in that moment that if Chara suddenly developed eye lasers like that one comic character who had to wear the ruby glasses all the time, he would be _less_ uncomfortable with their stare than he was at that moment.

They looked away from him and returned to watching where they were walking, then. Weaving through students in the hallway was something that should be more or less effortless with how small their frame was, comparatively, but they seemed to want to make an effort to not walk in _front_ of or _behind_ him for any length of time. "Hey. What are you doing after school today?" they asked, and the complete non-sequitur threw his brain for another loop.

Despite the cognitive gymnastics he found himself participating in, he at least let out a sigh of relief that he wasn't being scrutinized anymore. "Oh, uh, nothing much, I guess. I'm going to do that paper that Mr. Gaster assigned, along with anything else we might get today. Then… some drawing?" This was being very optimistic on his part. Chances were that he was going to play some mindlessly grindy mobile game like _Snack Stackers_ or _Grand Sky Odyssey_ , make a vague post on FaceJournal, and then crash. That seemed to be his schedule lately, anyway.

Chara shook their head, and he got the feeling that was in response to both what he had said and what he _hadn't_ said. "Nope." they said. "You're coming with me, is what you're doing."

He blinked. "Wait. What?" He realized he hadn't exactly said an immediate and hard _no_ , but he still wanted some kind of clarification before any _yes_ happened.

"Look. It'll be fun. I promise. And I won't… I mean, you don't…" they took a breath, then continued. "Today is an okay day. A better day than yesterday. You don't have to worry about me losing it like I did last night. In any sense."

Well, if they were self-aware enough to at least attempt to promise that in any meaningful way, he could at least give them the chance to follow through. He gave them a smile that was at least _mostly_ unforced. "I'm not worried about that. I mean, I believe you, okay? It's just that I want to get the homework thing out of the way at some point. I don't always have the most energy after school, but I also don't want to be behind on the first day. But… I really _would_ like to hang out with you." None of that was a lie, either. Even if he couldn't track their facial expressions and general behavior very well, they were at least honest when they _spoke_. He could tell that. It was refreshing.

Chara nodded. "Yeah, okay. Bring it with you, if you really want. It's just. I want to talk with you a little bit. Actually talk. Somewhere that isn't an alleyway or shady venue bathroom." They smiled up at him. The speed at which that smile could replace any other expression on their face _should_ have unsettled Asriel, and he knew it. But he also wanted to believe that the smiles that they were giving _him_ were honest ones. "You wanted me to show you something real last night, and I did. But it wasn't the whole story, either, and if we're going to be friends, I kinda want you to know how badly it's gonna fuck you."

This time, Asriel was the one who laughed out loud. "Oh, trust me. There is nothing you can do to me that could possibly make me any worse." At that point in time, he really believed it, too.

The look he got from Chara made it clear that they weren't convinced.

_~~~_

"What the fuck," Chara said, eyeing the components of Asriel's lunch that he was currently arranging in front of him, "is Astronaut Food?"

Asriel's lunch was a veritable feast compared to the typical lunchroom fare. His mom always made sure he had good food for lunch, and today it consisted of crab apple slices, snails, cheese, a slice of cinnamon-butterscotch pie, and the current subject of conversation, Astronaut Food. As Chara didn't seem to have brought _anything at all_ , he had offered to share the parts of his lunch that were suitable for human consumption. He smiled as he slid the package over to Chara. "It's kind of like, uh, a frozen yogurt granola bar. Or freeze-dried ice cream. You know what? It's actually better if you just try it, because it's really hard to describe." he said.

Chara examined the bar. In that moment, the look on their face reminded Asriel of the way a cat looks when a strange new toy has been presented to it. Then, Chara shrugged. "Well, that's fucking weird, but sure, I'll try anything once."

A passing student overheard just that one line of conversation without context, and felt the extremely pressing need to interject a somewhat half-hearted, "I _bet_ you would."

Chara tensed immediately, their face taking on an expression of sudden, surprised anger. " _What_ did you just say to me?" They started to stand up, one hand immediately reaching for a pocket that Asriel was _pretty_ sure contained a knife. At least, they'd indicated that much the previous night.

Asriel didn't want to find out if he was right. "Chara, hold on. That's...that's just how things are in school. It happened all the time in junior high. Just let it go, okay?" His paws were outstretched in a placating gesture, and he hoped they were actually listening to him and not about to go cut out an older student's tongue or something.

Thankfully, Chara paused, looked at him for a moment, and sat back down. They seemed incapable of letting it go, though, but at least their retaliation stayed firmly in the realm of verbal warfare. "Go fuck a cheese grater!" they called at the guy, and then sat down to finish unwrapping their Astronaut Food.

Asriel sighed. "Sorry. It's just. For all that you think people won't want to hang around _you_ , it… may not be a great idea for you to be seen with _me_ , if you value your reputation or anything."

Chara blinked. "Why the fuck would I care what anyone thinks of me? _Especially_ someone who _isn't_ my friend. You actually give a shit about me when you have no reason to. I'm not just gonna screw you over to get ahead in some kind of fucked-up bid for social attention I don't even _want_." they said. Then, they broke off half the Astronaut Food and slid the rest back over to Asriel.

He looked down at it, and rather than process half of the words Chara had just said to him, he just said, "Uh, you can have all of it, you know. I offered it to you?" This last part came out as a question, even though he was certain he _did_ offer it to them, not five minutes previous.

Chara held up their piece of it. "You offered to _split_ your lunch with me. So, I split it. That's, uh, what that _means_. And anyway, I'm not just going to jack all your food. I might be an _asshole_ , but I'm not one-hundred-percent a _dick_."

Asriel chuckled, though it was less at the comment and more at the fact that he was seeing just one more side of Chara. For all their tough talk about the world being 'kill or be killed', they at least didn't want to hurt _him_. He was once again glad that he didn't have the very human problem of being able to visibly blush. "Well, I hope you like it." he said, as he helped himself to a crab apple slice that his mom had cut into the shape of a crab pincer.

"Well, even if I don't, I won't forget the experience," they said, breaking off a piece and popping it into their mouth. Their facial expression cycled through several variations of that catlike curiosity as they pondered the taste and texture of the thing they'd just eaten. They swallowed the bite, and then said, "I was right. Weird as fuck."

Asriel giggled a little. "Hey, at least you tried it, right? Like you said, it's the experience that matters?"

"Well, I mean, I don't _not_ like it. And it's food, so…" they stuffed the rest into their mouth and gobbled it down in one bite. Asriel didn't really _want_ to know how long it had been since they'd had a _meal_. A real, actual meal. He wanted to fix that, and he started to seriously think about the prospect of inviting Chara over for dinner or something. What would his mom think of them? That was a concern, but he thought that getting them some real food was more important.

He could at least give them a little taste of home cooking, though. He took the pie that his mom had packed him and started to split it in half with a small, plastic fork. "So, this pie, right? My mom baked it herself. She didn't buy it from a store or use processed mix or anything. This is a hundred percent from scratch." he said, practically beaming with pride.

Chara eyed the pie in the way that a vulture must eye a thirsty desert traveler. "Huh. No shit?" they said. "Hey, so maybe I'd like to just skip straight to the 'dessert' part of this meal."

Asriel grinned, handing Chara the fork and letting them have their half first. "Sure! I mean, after seeing this, I'd think there were something wrong with you if you _didn't_ want to jump all over this pie."

Chara smirked at that, then took a bite. Their eyes widened immediately. "That's fucking _amazing._ " they said, though the statement was so muffled by the presence of pie in their mouth that it effectively removed all the vowels from the sentence.

Asriel's pride threatened to explode out of his chest. Sure, he might not think much of himself, but he knew how hard his mom worked for him. Whether he deserved it was something else entirely, but he was happy that he could give Chara the experience of tasting his mom's cooking. "I never leave lunch without finishing dessert. My mom doesn't make _anything_ bad."

Chara had already consumed most of the pie. Clearly, they weren't used to _savoring_ their food. "Your mom? Is amazing." they said between bites.

"Thanks." Asriel said, as he took the plastic spoon from his lunchbox and started on his own portion of the pie. "That's honestly the nicest thing anyone's said to me about Mom in a really long time."

"Yeah? I mean, judging by available evidence, she's the best mom _I_ could ever think of." Chara replied, gesturing at the eviscerated remains of something that used to be a pie sitting in front of them.

Asriel shrugged. "Nevermind. It's just, you know how mean people can be." At least, he figured they did, based on everything they'd told him so far.

"Okay, but the _pie_ , man. The _pie_! Anyone who can make something like this has _got_ to be up for canonization or something!" Chara said, with several animated gestures at the pie corpse, which at this point could only be identified by dental records.

Asriel blinked. "Canonization?"  
  
Chara looked down at the pie. "Oh. Uh. It's what happens when human churches decide there should be saints. Your mom's pie is divinely inspired, is what I'm saying here."  
  
The comment sent a tingle of curious surprise through Asriel's thought processes. He didn't know much about human religions himself, but he didn't know that he'd expected _Chara_ to, either. This was just one more little clue about them that he hadn't had before, and he was starting to try and make those tidbits of information fit into the whole in ways that made sense. "Uh, yeah, most people just seem to want to make, uh. Let's just say, off-color jokes about her."

Chara raised an eyebrow. "I _am_ an off-color joke. You _don't_ have to censor things around me, you know."

While Asriel understood _that_ much, at least, he still didn't necessarily _want_ to think about all the things that various self-proclaimed bastions of sophomoric comedy said about his mom. Certain popular movies over the years hadn't done him any favors in that area, either. "Look. There's more than one definition of the phrase 'cream pie', you know?"  
  
Chara almost spit out the final bite of the brutal pie murder they had just committed. "For fuck's _sake_."

Asriel sighed. "Yeah. Sorry for being a downer. It's just the kind of crap I have to put up with at school. I've gotten kind of used to it after the past year or so."

"No, it's okay, just, _damn_ dude. Like, I'm _used_ to being fucked with and giving people shit, but I'd never insult someone's _mom_. I mean. Okay, I _would_ , but only if she were really a bitch to _me_ , directly and personally." Chara said.

Asriel looked up at them, then, feeling the outrage radiate off of them as if they were a small sun composed entirely of anger. He wondered why they were getting so mad about this when it was _his_ mom that had been insulted. He wasn't totally surprised, though, as they seemed to swing instantaneously between emotions at the drop of a dime. They seemed to get into their head that they _should_ be angry about something, and then they would just _do_ it. That this had serious implications about their mental state at any given time wasn't something that he actively considered. At the moment, he was just glad someone was finally _defending_ his mom. "Well, I can assure you she's not...anything anyone's ever said about her. I'm glad you like the pie, though. I'll make sure to bring some tomorrow for you."  
  
"You know just what to say to keep me coming back, hm?" they said with a smirk.

Asriel found himself hoping that would _always_ be the case.

_~~~_

The last two classes of the day mocked Asriel with their length. He didn't remember first days being so _boring_ before, though part of it was that he was getting to the point where he just wanted to get into the class material given that he had to be there _at all_. English, his last class of the day, was one that he didn't know how he felt about. On one hand, their instructor was young, so that meant that she could perhaps relate to the students a little better since she wasn't very far removed from being one _herself_. On the other hand, her youth meant that she was going to get _so_ much heck from certain students that he kind of felt bad for her. The class syllabus did say they were going to be studying some Shakespeare this year, and he desperately hoped that didn't mean _Romeo and Juliet_. He had tried to read it on his own once and found that he hated it and everything it stood for.

When the final bell rang, Asriel practically shot up out of his seat and dashed over to Chara. It occurred to him that _part_ of his restlessness throughout the last half of the day had to do with Chara's offer of hanging out with him after school, though he didn't dwell on that thought too much. He was far more concerned with making sure Chara hadn't forgotten about him.

They hadn't, or at least they were waiting up for him outside the classroom door as he walked into the hallway. They nodded at him in a brief greeting, then said, "Hey. Wanna get the fuck out of here?"

He nodded in return and whispered, "Eff...yes." Even this _abbreviated_ attempt at swearing caused him to immediately look down at the floor in absolute embarrassment. He knew deep down inside that he was _supremely_ uncool, but he now was starting to understand the definition of the phrase 'trying too hard' from a very personal level.

Chara just smirked and nudged him with an elbow. "You… don't swear much, do you." they observed.

Asriel gave a chuckle that even he could tell sounded like he was as nervous as a cat in a room full of electric trimmers. "I mean, I get in serious trouble from my mom when I do. Plus, you can get written up for it if a teacher hears you! Even suspended!"

"Ah." Chara said, with a knowing nod. "See, here's the thing about swearing. Either you do it all the time, or you only do it when it matters. There's really no in-between there."

"You seem to be the type who swears all the time, then," he said with a chuckle as they walked through the noisy hallway toward the building's front exit. He was so focused on Chara that he was basically relying on them to weave their path through the students shoving books into their lockers and joining the same mass exodus that the pair of them were being swept up in.

Chara nudged a backpack aside before it smacked them in the face. "Yeah, well. That's because nobody expects any better of me." they said.

Asriel frowned. "Okay, but still,l I'm really surprised you didn't get sent to the office today. Between your shouting in the lunchroom and your comments during art class, it's kind of amazing nobody said anything to Ms. Temmie."

Chara just looked up at him and repeated, "...Nobody expects any better of me."

Asriel's frown deepened, even as he made the archaically gentlemanly gesture of holding one of the doors at the front entrance of the school open for Chara. He was so much taller than them that they could almost just walk under his arm without ducking. "Well, I _do_ expect better of you." he said. "And I don't just mean your swearing. You can do that as much as you want when you're around me, I'm only asking that you don't do it in places where you could get us both in trouble."

Chara stopped walking then and turned to look up at him. "...Why?" In contrast to what he was realizing was a characteristic tendency for defiance, this seemed to be an honest question born of curiosity. They seemed to genuinely want to know why he cared so much.

Asriel didn't know if he had an answer for them. Why _did_ he care so much? It was obvious they were going to do whatever it was they wanted to do at any given time, with or without his influence. And he wanted to be friends with them, with or without their desire to show how tough or edgy they were. He just kind of preferred that he didn't have another friend who turned out to be a massive asshole. Not like the previous year.

"Well," he said, as he looked down into their red eyes. "I mean, as long as you're not using racial or gender slurs, I don't really care, I suppose. It's just…" he took a pause, trying to think of how to best articulate how he felt. "Well, aside from hitting on me yesterday, you seem like a nice person. And I don't really believe in letting someone do bad things just because it's 'who they are'. That's what my dad always said, anyway. People get hurt if they're not told that they should stop."

Chara looked to the side. "I'm _not_ a nice person." they said. It was a quick retort, but Asriel got the distinct feeling that it was more of a reflexive statement than anything with any real feeling behind it. "...But for what it's worth, I still feel fucking horrible about last night, and I think we'll both be better off if we agree that we should just start over."

Asriel nodded. "Like how it was actually… really nice to hang out with you at lunch today, and be in most of your classes with you?"

Chara smiled. "Yeah. Kinda like that. It makes for a better story about how we met, anyway, right?"

"I suppose." Asriel replied. "Or at least, one that would be more acceptable to my mom if we ever have to tell her. Uh, hey, is that your…"

Chara's car somehow managed to look even more unfortunate in the daylight than it had at night. With the sun shining, it was possible to see every dent, scratch, and area where pastel-green duct tape had been used to attach something that should have remained attached on its own. It was an absolute disaster of a vehicle, and the fact that it could still _turn on_ was more of a statement on its construction than it was on any care taken by its current owner.

Chara gestured. "Look. You don't say anything about my car, I won't say anything about your failure to swear correctly. Got it?"

Asriel shrugged. "As long as it has seat belts, I can accept that."

"It _has_ seat belts."  
  
"...That work." Asriel prompted.  
  
" _That work._ " Chara retorted.

"On the passenger sea-"  
  
"Just _get in the car_ , do you want to go chow down on the best burgers in town or _not_?" they said, clambering into the driver's seat and slamming the door behind them.

The car shuddered a bit and miraculously did _not_ fall apart.

_~~~ Chara ~~~_

Chara wondered, not for the first time that day, why exactly they were doing all this. They cared that Asriel showed up at school that day and ended up in the same first class that they were in. They cared that he sat next to them. They cared that he wanted to follow them around all day. And damn it, they _cared_ that he'd split his lunch with them when he had absolutely no reason to do so.

They were in dire straits and they knew it. Paying for their dinner, even on two-for-one day, represented the last of their dwindling funds. After this meal, they had _nothing_.

He had offered to help them.

_That's right._

_Take advantage of that._

_That's why you're doing this._

_He's there. He offered. Say yes._

No. That wasn't why. They weren't going to just _use_ him. This meal, this was paying him back for the lunch. That's the way the world worked. One thing for another. Even exchange.

"So, where are we going, anyway?" Asriel said from the passenger seat of the Charamobile, sack of burgers in his paws. For all his jabs about the car not having proper seat belts, he _was_ wearing his. Just as they were. They didn't, generally, take any chances with traffic laws, though it was less about safety and more about not wanting to be pulled over for some bullshit reason. That was something they _absolutely_ couldn't afford.

"Someplace quiet." they said. "Someplace we can talk without being interrupted. And you can do your homework if you want, but I really think we need to just. Talk a few things out. You know?"

Asriel nodded, then looked down at the bag of glorious, glorious food he was holding. "Um. Hey. So last night. You said you didn't have… anywhere to go. Can you really afford to be buying me dinner like this?" The concern in his eyes was a nearly tangible thing, and it was something Chara didn't know what to do with.

_You know._

_You know what to do._

_He wants to give. You can take._

The truth was that no matter what they told themself, they had no idea how to respond in any meaningful way to someone who had any kind of selfless concern. In their experience, that wasn't how the world worked. "It's the first day of school. We lived through it. It's worth a burger, don't you think? And anyway, you split your lunch with me." they said, as if that answered everything.

Asriel frowned. "I just kept thinking, golly, it's a good thing I brought my own lunch. I would have hated for you to starve or something. And I guess things must be really bad if you're living in your car."

Chara snorted. "Figured you thought I was bullshitting you about the living situation. Sometimes people don't really believe me." That was something they learned very early on. Nobody wanted to believe that anyone was any worse off than they could imagine them being. Chara, with their affinity for music and the fact that their clothes were only _fashionably_ torn, couldn't possibly be homeless.

Except that they were.

"Well," Asriel replied, "you haven't given me a reason _not_ to believe you. So it would be mean of me to just _not_."

Chara snorted. "Yeah. Yeah it would be. Hasn't stopped a lot of people, though." They pulled into the parking area of a small park with a playground that looked as if it had seen better days. Chara knew this park quite well by now. It was one of the first places they'd ever stopped in when they came to this town, and since then the place had become something of a quiet hangout for them.

Chara got out of the car and gestured for Asriel to do the same. Once he got out, they locked the doors, pocketed the key, and hopped over the short barrier between the parking lot and the park proper. As Asriel followed, they walked past a set of swings that were only half attached to their supports by rusting chains, a jungle gym that looked mostly sturdy even if it could probably give someone tetanus just by looking at it, and a small wooden fort that, despite missing a roof, seemed to be the most intact structure in the whole place. The pair of them ended up at a picnic table that looked like it had survived the apocalypse.

When Chara sat down, Asriel looked at the table for a moment. "Do you want me to sit next to you, or across from you?" he asked, as he set the bag of food down on the table.

"Huh?" Chara asked, not really processing why he was asking what seemed like such a basic question.

"Oh," he replied, "I just didn't know what your comfort level with personal space was today. I figured I should check."

They blinked. "Oh! Uh. You can sit next to me. I, uh. Wow, you know, no one's ever asked me something like that before." They wondered what it would have been like for them if anyone had ever really cared about _anything_ they wanted or needed before now. They decided it was going to take some getting used to, but they could at least try it out and see what it felt like.

Asriel sat down beside them, gave them one of those cute, dorky smiles of his, and reached for the food. He surveyed the park as he handed a burger over to Chara and started to unwrap his own. "Uh, not to be ungrateful for the quiet or anything, but this place looks like it should be condemned."

This caused Chara to actually laugh and not just snort with sarcastic amusement. " _I_ should be condemned." they said, before taking a gigantic bite out of the hamburger.

Just like every other time they had bitten into a burger from that place after a day or two of not having anything substantial in their stomach, the first bite was glorious. It was as if the gates of heaven had opened up and bestowed upon them paradise in the form of a quarter pound of beef, two strips of bacon, a half-day's serving of vegetables, and a whole wheat bun. And then if that weren't enough, Saint Fucking Peter himself added a generous portion of whatever the fuck sauce it was that made the whole thing just come together into a meal fit for several kings and their respective vassals.

They were broken out of their reverie by Asriel asking, "What exactly did you do that's so terrible?"

Chara blinked, trying to remember the thread of conversation before they had experienced meat paradise. "Huh? Oh. Uh." they said, finally remembering. "There's actually not a lot I _haven't_ done. But it's not even that. It's just that my situation is so extremely fucked up. I've never really been around anyone who _remotely_ wants to be connected to that kind of crazy."

_That's right._

_He'll leave you._

_Once he finds out, he'll leave you._

_Don't tell him anything._

That didn't seem right to Chara, either. If it were anyone else, they'd listen to that instinctive insistence in the back of their mind that they need to just get what they needed out of Asriel and then run. But throughout the day, and even the previous night, he'd shown them that he wasn't _that_ kind of person. Or at least, if he was, he was really good at hiding it.

He glanced over to them. He hadn't started on his burger yet, as if he were waiting on them to tell him that they actually did need it after all. Which, they _did_ , except… what did it matter if they ran out of food or money today or tomorrow? It didn't. Not in the grand scheme of things. Asriel looked them over for a moment, and they once again had that indescribable feeling that he was seeing something about them that they didn't know about _themself_. "Have you ever tried asking for help from anyone? I mean. I… I figure there's a reason you're out on your own, but…"

Chara frowned, and something on _their_ expression caused him to look away. "No, I haven't, because who would help me? Think about it, Ree. Who would actually help me? Without any strings attached? If the choice is going to be begging for handouts or figuring out a way to get what I need _on my own_ , I know which one I'm going to pick." Then there was the other thing. The part they couldn't tell him.

Except.

Except maybe they could. Maybe this one time they could give him what he was looking for. Something _real_. And this time, that thing was the knowledge that there was nothing real about them _at all_.

"Uh. There's more, I guess." they said, and Asriel paused mid-bite to look at them, eyes questioning. "I guess it's that I just figure, eventually if someone's giving something to me, they're going to want to know who I am. I mean. People _have_ wanted to know that before. And so I leave. Because that's the one question I can't answer."

_That's right._

_You're a lie._

_A figment._

_A charade._

_You made your choice a long time ago._

"I want to help you."

Chara's eyes widened and their head turned, quickly, far too quickly, to look in Asriel's direction. "What… did you say?"

"I said, I _want_ to help you. I don't want to ask any question you're not ready to answer. And even if you do answer it and I don't like the answer, I want to _help_ you. That's not… conditional. It shouldn't be. There's… there's this character from one of my favorite video games that says something like 'people should just want to help each other'. And I didn't get it at the time because I just wanted to hate everyone. But Chara…" he said, reaching the paw that wasn't holding a hamburger over to rest atop their hand. "I want to help you, because whether you like it or not, you _need_ that."

Chara could feel their face going bright red, and they knew that meant they looked like a sunburned lobster. They tried to hide that embarrassment and discomfort by turning to face the other direction for a moment and taking a bite out of their hamburger. They didn't know what to say or do in response to that outpouring of actual, real concern.

_Yes, you d-_

They squeezed their eyes shut, trying to fight off that nagging, insistent, instinctual inner monologue. When they opened their eyes again, Asriel looked even _more_ concerned and they suddenly felt bad for making him worry even more than they had been. "Uh. Thanks, Ree. But the thing is, I don't really know if you _can_ help me."

Asriel sighed. "To be honest, I really don't either. This is all kind of new to me, and I still don't really understand all of it. But the least I can do is be your friend, right?"

This also wasn't what Chara had expected. If they were being really honest, they were kind of expecting him to start telling them about what they _should_ do, as if the world worked the same way for them than it did for him. But for him to outright admit that he had no idea what they should do or how he would even start to help them? That kind of honesty did more for their trust in him than anything else could have. They felt their voice start to catch in their throat and they had to blink back a couple of tears as they responded, "Yeah. Yeah, you can do that. You can absolutely do that." they said.

Asriel nodded. "I know that part of this is that you don't want to end up in jail or something, right? I… won't tell anyone about anything you may have done. Not my mom, or the school, or even the police. And if it'll make it easier for you to just not tell me anything, well, that's why I haven't asked. I don't know if I'm good at keeping those kinds of secrets. I've never had to before."

Chara laughed. "Oh my God. That's honestly the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a good long while." they said. "Uh. Look. If it'll ease your conscience a bit, I haven't actually killed anyone." They took a deep breath. "Uh. Hospitalized, sure, but nobody ever _died_. And anyway he had it coming. It was self defense."

Asriel nodded. "I can sympathize with that. I don't think self-defense is wrong." he said, a little more emphatically than Chara would have expected him to. Suddenly, they began to wonder if _he_ ever had to defend himself. And whether he was successful or not.

Chara continued. "Also, I don't do drugs or drink. Don't know if I mentioned that last night. I'm straight-edge." they said.

He raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?" he asked, a bit of curiosity seeping into his voice. "Because it kind of sounds like a name you'd give to one of those knives you carry around."

Chara laughed. "Uh, well, honesty, all it means is that I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. Except I'm punk as fuck about it." they said.

Asriel smiled. "Okay, so that does actually make me a little less concerned about you in general." he said. "But you obviously still... uh, you know. The stuff you tried to get me to do." Chara noticed the slight look in his eye that they took as worry. Whether it was for them or for himself, they couldn't tell. Regardless, they had to admit it was justified either way, and suddenly they felt like they belonged in one of those alleyway dumpsters again.

"Yeah. Yeah, that stuff, I _do_. But not with anyone who didn't want to. I mean. I'm good at picking up on cues, most of the time. It's just that not many people actually don't want to."

Asriel nodded. "Uh. Yeah, I think I know what you mean. People either don't say no, or don't say no in ways that anyone can pick up on, right? Too much can go wrong, there. So, yeah, it worries me. I think that if… if anything I say means anything, I'd prefer it if you tried not to do that stuff anymore."

Chara frowned. Did he honestly think that he could tell them what they could and couldn't do? They were about to snap at him, and they knew that if that little bit of raw instinct in their head hadn't, miraculously, shut up when they told it to, there would have been a lot of encouragement to just stand up, walk over to the car, and be done with Asriel right then and there.

Except.

_Except what if he's right? What has it ever gotten me?_

_A warm bed?_

_A hot meal?_

_A night of not sleeping in my car?_

_When was the last time I ever felt… anything at all, except for the need for any of those things?_

_When was the last time that the whole point of it all was to NOT feel anything? For just a little while?_

"...Maybe…" they ventured, in a small, uncertain voice. "Maybe you're...right about that."

Asriel blinked. "...What?" It was clear that _he_ was expecting the conversation to end right then and there, too.

Chara shook their head. "Look. I'll think about it, okay? It's hard to not want something I've _always_ wanted. That's all I can say, really. But as far as all that goes, it's always been… uh, I mean, nothing's ever been _serious_ , you know? Hell, I don't think I've ever been on an _actual date_. If you can believe that."

Asriel shrugged. "I have. Maybe they're not really worth it, now that I think about it." he took another half-hearted bite out of his burger, though at the very least Chara could tell that the act of eating something made him feel better, at least for a moment. Maybe they had that much in common. "Hey, Chara? I know this might seem out of nowhere, but… if you ever fell in love with anyone, what would you want them to be like?"

Chara was silent for a moment. They had no idea how to respond to that, so they went with their default mode of operation. "...Depends. Are we accepting the premise that love exists and that I'm capable of it?"

Asriel laughed a little at the statement, but Chara could tell that he was taking what they were saying more seriously than anyone else would have. It warmed them a little bit to know that was the case. "Well, I guess I can share some of my ideas, then. For me, I think… it should be someone kind. Obviously. That's like the first thing anyone says."

Chara nodded. "Okay, well, you've just ruled _me_ out, then, so that doesn't make this conversation any more awkward."

Asriel sighed. "You don't have to do that, you know. Put yourself down at every opportunity. Anyway. I think I'd also want someone who stands up for what they think is right. Someone who is a good listener and understands you even if they don't quite relate with the situation. Someone who… doesn't turn their back on you when you need them most. Someone who makes you _better_. The best _you_ that you can possibly be."

Chara just looked at him as he said that, ticked off all those things as if they were items on some kind of weird bucket list. And it was even weirder due to how similar that list was to things that Asriel _himself_ had been doing for Chara in the past twenty-four hours. If that were Chara's list…

Chara shook their head. No. They didn't get a list. They didn't get a _someone_ , and they didn't get to love. That wasn't their lot in life. So, they said, "I guess the first thing on my list would be someone who can go for an entire day without calling me a slut. How about that one?"

It still described Asriel, they realized, but it was also a fairly low bar to clear. Except that it apparently wasn't, as most people couldn't manage it.

Asriel glanced over to them and then went on. "Maybe someone who doesn't call you names _at all_ or tell you it's only a joke and to not take things so hard when you confront them about it."

Chara chuckled. "Yeah, if I call someone names, it's because I mean it." they said. "Hey, how about someone who's strong enough to stand up to me and tell me when I've fucked up? Nobody's _ever_ managed to do _that_ one."

Except Asriel _had_ , several times, within the past day.

_Oh. God._

"How about someone who isn't always making comments about my appearance, as if my entire self-worth is based on how good I look or whether or not I've slept with anyone?" Asriel said, and the amount of pain in his eyes as he made _that_ comment told Chara just how many times that had happened in the past. Just as with the comments he said people made about his mom, this knowledge made Chara unreasonably angry and in a mood to stab someone. This time, they tried to rein it in.

"Okay, and how about someone who doesn't _just_ want to bang me, as if I were some curiosity for them to satisfy?" they said, listing something that came from the same level of personal experience over the past year of their own life. That part, at least, wasn't a secret, even if Asriel hadn't known exact details of all the people Chara had been with.

Asriel sighed. "...We could go on like this forever. There are so many not-nice people in the world, and most of them don't even try to hide it. This was supposed to be a positive conversation." he said. "Sorry. I guess I'm still kind of a downer, whether I want to be or not."

Chara took the last bite of their hamburger and then crushed the wrapper into a small ball and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "You don't have to tell me how shitty people can be. I'm kind of an object lesson on that. From both sides of it." they said. After that, they just looked out past the boundaries of the park and over the line of trees that started a short distance past that. Inevitably, their eyes were drawn to the mountain in the distance which they had learned shortly after arriving in this town was named Mt. Ebott. It was the only mountain they had ever really seen before, and the only one that mattered to them in the entire world. After a moment, they said, "What about… people who pretend to be something they're not?" They didn't want to ask that question, but they also couldn't really avoid it. Not now.

Asriel glanced to the side, then started to gaze at the mountain alongside them. "I think it depends." he said. "Like, if you're trying to get a job, pretending is necessary or they won't hire you. If you live somewhere dangerous, I'd think that pretending to be something you're not could save your life. People always say to 'be yourself', but what if you don't know what that is? What if you don't know who you are, or what if who you are changes as you grow?"

Chara nodded. "I get that. More than you probably realize." They took a breath. "Hey. Look. This is going to sound hypocritical as fuck, and I realize that. But I like you for the way you are. The way you look, and act, and the things you do or don't do. So if you can just keep being that? You've got a friend for life, right here." They smiled a little. "...'Course, you might want to try making a friend who won't be a fucking social _albatross_ , but you know."

Asriel chuckled at that. "Well, the way I heard it, the albatross was actually a good luck charm until some old man went and killed it."

Chara's eyes widened. "...No shit? Huh. So everyone's been using that one wrong?"

Asriel smiled. "Does that really surprise you?"

Chara grinned. "Not in the slightest."

_~~~_

"Hey, I'll see you tomorrow, okay? And you'd better show up, because I'm going to have a surprise for you!" Asriel said as he got out of the Charamobile. He had told Chara to drop him off a few blocks away from his house, something that Chara definitely understood. When it came down to it, they'd only known each other for about a day, and even aside from the obvious safety issues, their vehicle did not inspire much confidence to outside observers.

Chara smiled. "Look, I'll be there, I promise. You don't have to bribe me or anything, you know?"

Asriel gave them a smile in return. "It's not a bribe, it's a _gift_. So, show up, and I'll see you then!"  
  
He waved to them as they drove away. Chara made sure to respect speed limits and traffic laws, but the first chance they got, they pulled into a supermarket parking lot and just sat there, looking at themself in the mirror.

_What the hell are you doing._

_What the actual hell are you DOING._

_He doesn't belong in this life._

_There is no place here for him._

_He's too good for this._

_He's too good for you._

Chara sighed, rubbing their temples with their fingertips, trying to make the ever-present headache go away. This was it. They were at the end of the line. They'd used the last of their money to make sure they didn't _owe_ Asriel anything, and now they had to figure out what they were going to do from there.

They had no money. They couldn't sell the car, that was an absolute certainty. Nobody would buy it, for one, and for another, it was the only shelter they had. Same with the clothes. They could start going through some of the random junk they carried along with them in the back seat and trunk, as if they hadn't already sifted through the items a thousand times before and sold anything that could fetch any price at all.

And they couldn't just go find someone to share a bed with for a few nights, because…

…

…

...Because it would disappoint Asriel.

And they cared about that.

So, that was one thing they had. They had Asriel.

They had school tomorrow.

And in that new day, they could figure out what the _hell_ they were going to do to stay alive from there.

_~~~_

_And as I lay me down to sleep_

_I pray the lord my soul to keep_

_If I should die before I wake_

_I pray the lord my soul to take_

_My soul to take…_

_~~~_


	3. We're on Our Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have gotten dire for Chara, even with all of Asriel's help. And what's more, someone close to Asriel has started to notice all the steps he's been taking to make sure Chara can survive. Is Chara a secret that he can keep for very much longer? Does he even want to keep them a secret?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, this is the chapter where things started to get real for us in this story. It's writing scenes like this that made us realize that there was something in here that we wanted to say about Chara and Asriel, about the world they (and by extension *we*) live in, and about how everyone deserves a chance to be treated like a person.
> 
> Chara's trying. They won't get it right the first time. Or the second. Or hell, even the third. But they're trying. Asriel, too, is trying, and he's having to think about things and see someone in situations he's never had to imagine before. it's going to affect him. It already *is* affecting him. 
> 
> The main message that we want to impart on anyone reading this is "You're not alone". Here, in this moment, Chara and Asriel are taking the first steps toward that realization. Needing help doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean you've lost. It just means that sometimes, we have to be stronger together.
> 
> So as the song says. Show your hands. All of us. 
> 
> And we can be stronger together.
> 
> Playlist for this chapter:  
> Radical Face - We're on Our Way  
> The Lumineers - Stubborn Love  
> Lorde - Liability  
> Hands Like Houses - Developments

_~~~_

_Show your hands_

_If you need a new coat of paint_

_If your bones are now heavy things_

_Like anchors hidden somewhere 'neath your skin_

_~~~_

@RadicalDreemurr: Oh my god I think I’m about to steal a thing. From myself. It still counts, right?

_~~~Asriel~~~_

This was the conversation that Asriel had been expecting all week. The larger slices of pie that he had been taking to school with him each day may not have been terribly noticeable, but the extra fruit and bags of chips that he was hoarding in his room like some sort of woodland creature certainly were. He hadn’t gone so far as to ‘borrow’ any actual money, and to his credit he wouldn’t have gone that far without giving his mother what he hoped would be a plausible explanation for needing an allowance. He was pretty sure it would just make Chara feel bad to realize they had to take the money anyway, and they seemed to be more willing to accept the more direct and practical assistance that was lunch-sharing.

As the week went on, though, Asriel noticed that the food didn’t seem to be enough. Chara kept falling asleep in classes and was starting to have trouble staying awake at lunch. The food that he shared with them seemed to vanish in an instant as they gobbled everything down so fast he was afraid they would be sick. He also remembered what they had said about their back hurting. That car of theirs was _not_ a place to get a good night’s sleep. He had seen how much stuff they had in their back seat. Even though those were things Chara was not likely to want to part with, he knew there was no way they could have room to properly lie down with all that stuff in the car. They needed something softer, at least, and Asriel wasn’t about to watch Chara start to get in trouble for falling asleep in class when their tiredness wasn’t even their fault.

The sleeping bag in his room hadn’t been used in years. When he opened his closet to look at it though, it just sat there, looking the same as it did when he had gone on the few camping trips with his dad that he had went on before deciding that the outdoors was _not_ his thing. He grabbed that sleeping bag and an old fluffy pillow and figured that if he could get those to school, they would be sufficient enough to provide Chara with a good night’s rest. He quickly ran into a problem though. Sneaking food out of the house was one thing, but he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to get away with carrying an entire sleeping bag to school without it prompting a couple of questions.

He was right.

Toriel was an observant woman under most any circumstance. As her gaze locked onto Asriel like one of those rotating lasers from one of his old video games, he silently wondered how he had ever expected to get out of the house with the sleeping bag alone. Nevermind that he had also stuffed a pillow into his backpack, straining the thing into an overstuffed cocoon. Suddenly, Asriel understood what Chara must have felt when being stared down by Undyne at the concert less than a week previous.

Gulp, indeed.

“You realize, Asriel Dreemurr,” she started, “that there are only so many conclusions a mother can draw from seeing her son trying to sneak a sleeping bag out of the house.” He knew that his mother didn’t think he was a stupid person by any means. However, he also knew that the look on her face, that look that could freeze a magma pit solid, was intended to let him know that she thought he was making very stupid choices.

He knew where her mind was going. Attending an unsupervised party was a mistake he had made once before. It was _not_ a mistake he was going to make again, but he understood his mother’s desire to keep him safe. He considered lying, even then, to protect Chara, but that only lasted for half a second as he realized there were things even a teenage boy couldn’t hide from his mother. “Okay, uh. Look. Mom. Uh, I can explain. Really! I can!”

Toriel’s eyes narrowed. “Can you.”

Asriel found himself suddenly praying to the first deity he could think of. Incidentally, this was Vishnu, a deity from a human religion he didn’t even believe in. “Um! It’s my friend! You know, the one I met at the concert?” He had, earlier in the week, told his mother about the human that he had been hanging out with in school, though he had done so in the broadest possible terms. Now, though, it was important he get a little more specific. “They… don’t have any food. They don’t even have any _money_! I share my lunch with them. I think they’re starving. I don’t think they have anywhere to go!”

Toriel’s eyes immediately widened. “Oh!”

Her surprise, in turn, surprised _him_. It really drove home to Asriel that he had been a real chore of a son these past few months. He’d been obviously unpleasant enough to deal with that she hadn’t considered that he was acting out of compassion rather than anything else. It didn’t help his general feeling that he was walking garbage, but at the same time, it was important enough that he push through that if it meant convincing his mom to help Chara. “Yeah. Sorry that it means I was technically stealing. I’ll… I’ll be in trouble if you think that’s what I need, just, let me keep helping them. Please?”

As he watched his mother intently, he saw her gaze soften from surprise to genuine care. “Oh, well, okay then. Let’s… here. You still have a few minutes before you have to leave. We… we need to sit down and have a conversation about this. As family.”

Asriel let out the breath he had been holding as he realized he was _not_ in trouble after all. Instead, his mother wanted to have a Family Conversation. That was okay. School wasn’t so far away that he would have to rush to get there, and Toriel was too practical to drag things out when she got into her problem-solving mode.

He followed his mother to the dining room table and sat down in one of the ornate wooden chairs that had been in her family for, he assumed, untold generations. “It’s not what you’re probably thinking.” he said. “They’re not bullying me or taking advantage of me. _I_ was the one who offered food to _them_. And they didn’t even take all of it even though I think they really needed to. And… it’s just, I never use this sleeping bag anymore, so I figured they could use it more than me because they’re sleeping in their car.” He was rambling and he knew it, but he wanted to get all of this out before he started trying to edit things for his mother’s benefit.

He needn’t have bothered. Her eyes immediately widened again when he mentioned the car. “Excuse me. They sleep in their _what_?”

Asriel looked down at the table meekly again. “...Car.” he said. “Um. An old Corolla. They named it and everything.” He didn’t know why he thought that was a terribly important detail to add in, but it beat mentioning the other things that Chara had claimed that they had done for shelter before meeting him.

Toriel frowned and looked down at the table herself, studying one of the meticulously-stitched lace patterns on the tablecloth. Then, she nodded, as if coming to a decision. “Okay. Well, they need protein. They’re probably not getting enough of it. So what I can do is send you to school with some peanut butter and an extra apple. As well as a granola bar. You make sure they eat that bar before class, okay?” She looked at his backpack again. “And do take a better pillow than one of your old ones, child. If they are sleeping on a car seat, they are going to need something with some support.”

Asriel was not exactly surprised by his mother’s attitude toward helping someone. Even at her most cynical, he knew she was a teacher at heart. She had always been the kind of teacher who wanted to help a student who genuinely _needed_ help and were doing their best to help _themselves_. She also could usually tell when students _did_ have legitimate concerns as opposed to just wanting to get something for free. What he was surprised about was her willingness to take it completely on _his_ word that this was the case, without ever meeting Chara. “I swear, Mom, they’re really not taking advantage of me.” he said. “They’re starting to fall asleep in class all the time. And it’s only the second week of school. They didn’t start out like that, but I think they’re running out of options. I’m… I’m really worried, Mom.”

Toriel nodded. “Asriel. I do _not_ think you would lie about something like this. Or even about most things. But especially not about someone really needing help. You are a compassionate child, and I should be _proud_ to have raised someone who would look out for someone you just met if they really need the help. I _am_ proud, Asriel.” she said.

Asriel felt the first real warmth inside his heart in months. It was fleeting, but it was _there_ , and he knew in that moment he had done something _good_.

In a more serious tone of voice, his mother asked him, “From what you have seen, do you think that your friend needs more help than you are capable of giving?” When he started to protest that he would do whatever it took to help, she raised a hand to stop him. “I know. You want to do it all yourself. But you are a sixteen-year-old boy, and I am an adult. I don’t mean to say that to belittle you, child, but the reality is that there are things that I can do that you cannot. So I want you to tell me, honestly, does your friend need help that you do not have the power to give?”

Initially it stung Asriel deep down to be brought face to face with the stark reality that he was still a kid. But then he realized something. His mother was _not_ treating him like a kid. For the first time in his life, she was treating him like an _adult_. She was laying out the cold, hard reality of the situation and asking him to give his honest assessment.

What could he say to that other than the truth? “Yes. I do, Mom. They’ve… they’ve been living on the street. For awhile. For, I think, _months_. Their car and their clothes and a bunch of junk in the back seat are all the things they have. I don’t know how on earth they are able to attend school, but they’ve shown up. Every day. Even if they’re tired, or if they hate it. Sometimes, I try and make sure they understand their homework before they drive me home.” That was something he hadn’t intended to let slip, but he decided to explain that, too. “Uh. Yeah, I should have mentioned that before. They drive me home. Back to the neighborhood, at least, so that I can help them study and so the walk home doesn’t take as long. They don’t know which house is ours though, because they drop me off a couple streets over!”

Toriel nodded as he spoke, assessing each piece of information and adding it to that problem-solving process that had always gotten their family out of _most_ situations. Then, she said, “Asriel, today, I want you to invite your friend over for dinner. I know that students in their situation can be a little stubborn, so I want you to _ask_ , to offer, and to not push them too hard. Push them a little, but not too hard.”

Asriel blinked as his heart leapt up into his throat and threatened to block all speech. “R-really?” he asked, when he could speak again. “Oh, gosh. I... _tonight_?”

Toriel nodded. “ _Tonight_. That child needs _food_. Real food. _Homemade_ food. Plus, it will give me a chance to meet this person who has obviously had such an impact on you in such a short time.”

Well, that was expected. Charitable as his mother was being, he also knew this was her way of using the situation at hand to keep tabs on who her son was hanging around. He could tell, though, that it was only an afterthought and that her concern about them _being fed_ was taking absolute priority here. “Of course, Mom! I’ll tell them!” Again, that small warmth radiated through his chest. Was this what hope felt like? He didn’t know if it would last, but he wanted to carry it as long as he could. If helping Chara could also help him feel _this_ , then he was going to keep doing it even _more_. “You said peanut butter, right? What about this pillow?” he gestured to the overstuffed backpack that was about to evolve into an _absolute mess_ if it burst open.

Toriel smiled at the bag. “I’ll tell you what, my child. Leave the pillow and sleeping bag here, and we can make sure that they have them when they come over for dinner tonight.”

He practically beamed, as if he was a small sun. Or a large sunflower. One of the two. “Yes, mom! Thank you! Thank you so much!” he jumped to his feet and glanced at the clock. “I have to get going but I’ll tell them to come home with me after school! I really, really hope they say yes! They’re really nice and I’d really love for you to meet them!”

One of those two things was true. He hoped that both of those things could be true for enough time for Chara to suitably impress his mother.

Toriel stood up and then stepped over toward Asriel and embraced him. “You have a good heart, my child. You have a heart bigger than this world deserves sometimes. Thank you for telling me what is going on here, so that I may help, too.” she said. “Thank you for… not trying to take it all on yourself, like your father would have done.”

He knew this wasn’t a dig at his father or a statement on why he wasn’t living with them anymore. If there was one thing he could say that he knew about his parents’ relationship, it was that his father’s compassion was one of the things that his mother had never stopped liking about him, even if there were other problems that overshadowed it.

He hugged his mother in return. “I want to help Chara.” he said. “Thank you… for understanding.

_~~~Chara~~~_

Chara was starving. Out of all the things Chara had experienced, this was actually kind of a new one. Over the past year, and even before that, they had been _hungry_ many times. Food had to be stretched, money had to be conserved, and meals, therefore, had to be skipped on a somewhat regular basis. The thing was, though, there had always _been_ the promise of food at the end of that, if only because they had some vague idea of where that food would be coming from.

This time was different.

Chara instinctively knew they weren’t _actually_ starving. Asriel’s shared lunch was keeping _that_ from happening. It wasn’t enough, though. Even as small as Chara _was_ , they were still operating on an increasingly severe calorie and nutrient deficit. After a certain number of days of that, they had begun to feel weaker than they were used to feeling, to the point that their movement was getting sluggish. From that point, their already shaky attention span took a complete nosedive, and they found themself falling asleep in class, or at least losing seconds at a time of whatever was going on.

This time, they had lost the entire last five minutes of class, and only realized it when they felt Asriel nudge their chair. Their head raised, reactively, though much slower than they knew it should have. They’d only caught that Asriel was trying to speak to them, and not what he’d actually said. “Mmph?” they replied, hoping for clarification.

“I said, it’s lunchtime!” he said, offering a paw to them. To his credit, he hadn’t tried to shake them awake. Even as slow and unresponsive as they were right now, that still might have gotten him cut, and that actually would have devastated Chara quite a bit.

“Oh.” they said. They didn’t take his paw, because then he would feel how weak their grip was and would be able to tell how shaky they were when they got to their feet. Instead, they tried to hide both of those things by leaning on their desk. They knew Asriel would eventually be able to tell that they were fading, but they were too stubborn to let _anyone_ , even _him_ , see weakness in them. “Yeah. Lunch. That’s a thing. That we should do. Lunching.” It was a string of sentences with neither structure nor profanity. They wondered if Asriel was taking that as the warning sign it should be.

“C’mon. We can’t eat in the classroom, people tend to get upset about that for some reason.” he said. He didn’t offer his paw again, but he remained close enough that if they did stumble, they knew they could stumble into him for support. That just told them that he knew exactly what was going on. It would have warmed them if they had any warmth left in their body at all.

They moved through the hallway in a haze, relying on Asriel to lead the way just like they did for the past few days or so. When they got to what was quickly becoming their usual eating spot in the cafeteria, Chara more or less collapsed onto one of the seats and leaned forward over the table to stop from falling off the seat completely.

Asriel winced and took a couple of containers out of his lunchbox. He slid one over to Chara, along with a napkin and a fork. “Here you go. Apples and peanut butter. There’s… more than usual, but I have a whole container over here for me. So please eat all of it?”

Chara did what they’d been doing more often than not lately and tore the container open as if… well, as if they were starving and this was the last food on earth. For them, it might be. They didn’t know. They were so solely focused on consuming the nutrients in front of them regardless of the form those nutrients came in. It could be flavorless protein paste for all they cared. Their body knew what it needed and it was _this_.

They were, in fact, so laser-focused on the food that they completely tuned Asriel out for a few minutes. They only realized he was speaking when their hunter-brain parsed a word that was just as relevant to them as this lunch was. “...over for dinner?”

Chara froze, their current bite of peanut-butter coated apple slice half-chewed in their mouth. “...fucking _what_?” they tried to get out, though it likely sounded like it was spoken through a mouthful of mush. Which it was.

Asriel smiled to them. “I said, if it’s okay with you, would you like to come over for dinner?” he looked down at the table, and Chara realized that he probably _actually_ _thought_ they would say _no_ to this. “I mean, Mom said she wants to meet you, and it would be a chance for you to have a home-cooked meal. It’ll just be the three of us!”

Chara just blinked.

Swallowed the food.

Tried to find something to say.

Failed.

Tried again.

Partially succeeded.

“...Sorry. I just thought I heard you say that you want _me_ to come home and meet your _mom_ , which is a thing that has happened to me _literally never_.”

Asriel laughed a little nervously. “Heh, well, uh, it’s happened now?” he said. “Um. You’re under no pressure or anything. I just wanted to let you know, that’s all. I’d really love to have you over.” He looked up at them and they saw, then, just _how_ much concern was really present.

_I… must look like shit._

_I am shit. I’m going to fuck this up. Meeting someone’s MOM? Who the fuck do I think I am?_

_You made your choice a long time ago._

_...If I don’t accept help, I am going to literally die._

_And don’t you deserve that?_

_...Shut the hell up. I will not let this world end me._

This entire internal exchange took exactly zero seconds, because it wasn’t like Chara had a lot to think about here. If it were possible, they would have considered the offer for _negative_ seconds before replying. “Fuck yes, I will.”

Asriel’s grin was so big that it practically radiated across the table and hit Chara directly in the face. “That’s wonderful, Chara!” He seemed to vibrate with excitement. Chara wondered again if they were worth half the enthusiasm Asriel was directing their way, but again they reminded their inner self-doubt that they were going to die of malnutrition if things kept going on the way they were. He continued his enthusiastic rambling. “You can change into something nice if you want. Nothing too fancy.”

Chara snorted. “Ree, I live in a car.” After saying this, Chara thought back to all the outfits they had worn the previous week. Rather than settle on one style, their offerings had ranged from torn jeans and a t-shirt to slacks and a polo shirt to their current outfit of choice, a spaghetti-strap tank top, a flannel overshirt, and a pair of shorts that just barely met dress code when they were standing and just barely violated it when they sat down. “Okay, I realize that ‘I live in a car’ means practically nothing coming from me, so semi-nice it is.”

Asriel replied immediately with “I think you look nice in _everything_ you wear!” Then, he looked down at the table again. “Just, um, nothing that would make my Mom raise an eyebrow, okay?” He didn’t directly mention their shorts, but then, he didn’t really have to. Chara got the message loud and clear.

Given a couple seconds of thought, they really wanted to know what he would say if they pressed him on that. They raised the corner of their mouth up into a teasing half-grin, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Are you _really_ afraid I won’t make a good first impression?” This was an intentional jab, and possibly a mean and unfair one given the first impression they had made on _him_.

Asriel looked over at them, and out of everything he could have said, he met their challenge head-on. “I just want to make sure Mom likes you. And.” his voice lowered a little. “I also want you to be _nice_ to her. Okay? I feel bad about going behind her back to get you all that food. I don’t _regret_ it or anything, but she did kind of think I was going to run away from home or something.”

This broke Chara’s facade and they actually laughed out loud at that mental image. “Oh, God. She thought you were going to _run away_? Come on, you won’t even _swear_ because of how good of a son you are.” They thought about that statement for a moment and finally let it sink in just what kind of mom Asriel must have, and then added, “...uh, and for a whole evening, neither will _I_.”

Asriel grinned. “Thanks, Chara.” then, he slid a slice of pie that was substantially larger than the share they had been getting for the past few days over to them. “Golly, I really can’t wait to get out of school today. Here, though, eat this. This should get you through the rest of the day.”

“Already on it.” they said, once again abandoning any restraint they still possessed at this point and tearing into the pie like their life depended on it.

~~~Asriel~~~

Asriel sat in the passenger seat of the pastel-green Corolla he was starting to think of as the Charamobile, nervously fumbling with one of the straps on the backpack that was resting on the floorboard between his legs. He was excited, sure, but he was also a bit terrified. His mom had not really approved of many of the friends he had brought over in the past. He had to admit there had been good reason for that, as it had turned out, but in that context it was even more important that Chara make a good impression on her. He got the feeling that Chara wasn’t used to a lot of social conventions that didn’t involve swearing or kissing, and as neither of those things were really considered _appropriate_ in the Dreemurr household, he needed to calibrate the entire Chara experience accordingly.

He glanced at the dashboard and saw that the needle on the fuel gauge was drifting precariously close to ‘E’. The area of the town that Chara had to drive around on a daily basis was not very large, as Asriel didn’t live far from school and Chara could live _pretty much anywhere_ , but Asriel knew that eventually the Charamobile, like its owner and namesake, would run out of fuel completely. He took a breath. “So, here’s what you need to know.” he started.

Chara took a slight detour and pulled the car into an empty parking lot. “No swearing. I know. ‘Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am’, all that. I haven’t _always_ been the social equivalent of a tire fire, you know.” they said, dismissively. They pulled into a parking spot, put the car in park, and then turned in their seat and reached into the back. After rummaging around a bit, they pulled out a few articles of clothing that looked miraculously clean. “This okay?”

Asriel looked the outfit over. The button-up shirt was nice enough, and the denim jeans had held up pretty well to being stored in a car. Which was half the point of denim, he realized. He nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I think mom would be okay with a t-shirt, but I’m getting the feeling that green is a color you’re pretty big on! I want you to feel comfortable in whatever you’re wearing, you know?” He looked around the car. “So, uh, do we need to go somewhere you can change?”  
  
Chara replied, “That’s why we’re _here_. Lot’s empty. And as long as _you_ look the other way, who’s gonna see me?” they said.  
  
It took him a moment to register that, and then process the pointed look they were giving him. “Wait, what? Oh! Uh! Sure! I’ll just, uh, look this way!” he said, and turned in his seat so that his back was completely to them. He even made sure to not look at the side-view mirror so that he wouldn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of them in a state of undress. “Boy, it really is a nice day outside, huh?”

“Yep.” This comment was punctuated by the sounds of clothing being shifted around and the rocking of the car that indicated that Chara was doing exactly what they said they were. Asriel felt his face heat up with embarrassment. Even if he wasn’t _seeing_ them, the knowledge that they were undressing and re-dressing less than a couple feet from him was bringing about _lots_ of physical responses he tried not to think about. Finally, they said, “‘Kay”, and as Asriel turned to face forward in the car seat again, they snapped their seatbelt back into place and shifted the car into drive once more.  
  
Asriel glanced over to them and said, “You look really nice.” He meant it, too. While the button-up shirt was designed specifically to make people look good in it, both the fit and color of the garment made Chara look especially appealing to him. Once again, he tried to think of anything to slow the beating of his heart. Resuming being nervous about dinner didn’t really help, it just made his heart race for a different reason entirely.

“Hey. Ree?” they said, shaking him out of his internal rumination.  
  
“Yeah, Chara?”

“You could have looked, you know. Nothing actually stopped you.”

“No, I wasn’t going to do that to you. Everyone deserves their modesty.” he said.

They chuckled at that. “You.” they said, “Are the weirdest boy I’ve ever met. But thanks for treating me like I’m worth something.” they added.

Asriel didn’t know how to respond to that, so he fell back into silence as Chara drove toward his home.

_~~~_

“Whoa.” Chara said, as they pulled up alongside the curb in front of Asriel’s house. “I think someone stole your picket fence.”

Asriel chuckled. The yard in front of the Dreemurr house never _had_ a picket fence, but he recognized the sarcasm present in Chara’s observation. They had reacted nearly exactly how he thought they would. Even though they were used to dropping him off in this particular neighborhood, seeing the house he actually lived in was another thing entirely, he knew. He started to say something like ‘It’s not the biggest house on the block or anything’, but he immediately realized how that would sound. So, he went with, “I’m sure the fence will turn up on Tradr in a few days.”

Chara’s comments aside, he was actually pretty self-conscious about the house he shared with his mother. The fact that his second-floor bedroom overlooked a well-manicured yard on a street relatively free of crime and vandalism placed him squarely in the realm of ‘middle class’, which meant that he was constantly aware that nearly everyone else had either more or less than he did. Either way, it meant that he had rarely brought people over, and when he _did_ , it had usually turned out badly in some manner or another.

Most of Asriel’s nervousness at this point in time came from wondering whether Chara and his mother would actually _like_ each other. There was also the additional concern over whether Chara would do anything that would immediately put his mom off of wanting him to have anything to do with them _at all_. Like hitting on her. Asriel had seen the hopeless look in Chara’s eyes whenever they looked at their English teacher, Miss Christine, and it was, quite frankly, embarrassing to be around them in that class. Of course, Miss Christine was much closer to their age than his mom was, and he didn’t think that Chara would _seriously_ make a pass at either of them, but still. It would be awkward.

Asriel glanced over at Chara and saw them just looking at the house as if it was about to come at them with a baseball bat or something. “We _can_ go in, you know.” he said. “Come on. It’ll be okay.” He got out of the car and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He heard Chara clamber out and the door locks click, and then Chara was stepping around the front of the car to walk with him up the sidewalk to his home.

Asriel pushed the door open and the smell of freshly-baking bread wrapped itself around him like a warm, soft quilt. If the smell had an effect on _him_ , he knew that it would affect Chara about a million times more. He glanced to the side to see if he was right, and was greeted by the sight of Chara with an expression reminiscent of a cartoon character on a desert island hallucinating a banquet. He smiled a little, gestured for them to follow him in, and said, “Hey Mom! I’m home! I’d like to introduce you to my best friend, Chara!”

Toriel’s voice carried from the kitchen in reply. “Well, bring them in, child! Dinner is almost ready!” Asriel noticed that she didn’t comment on the ‘best friend’ part. Asriel knew it was probably silly, seeing as how he had only known Chara for a little more than half a month, but at this point Chara _was_ the best friend he had. Or at least, they were the best friend he had in his class, as he wasn’t about to discount Undyne’s companionship so easily.

Asriel smiled to Chara. “Come on.” he said, encouraging them once again as he started to lead them toward the kitchen. Chara seemed to be in a daze, as if trying to absorb nutrients from the aroma of baking in the air. They did follow, though they froze up a little when they reached the door to the kitchen and found themself under the appraising gaze of Asriel’s mother.

“Oh, hello there child,” Toriel said to Chara, taking in their appearance, their clothing, the look on their face, and probably a million other little details that Asriel could only begin to guess at. His mother had been a teacher, once upon a time, and that tended to impart a person with certain perceptive abilities that mere mortals could only aspire to. “I’m Asriel’s mother, Toriel. Asriel has told me so very much about you.” This wasn’t exactly true, and Asriel knew it. He suddenly felt very guilty for _not_ telling his mom more than he _had_. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and I can hear a little bit about you from _you_ , while I finish making dinner for us?”

Out of everything Asriel predicted Chara would say upon meeting his mother, naturally the first words out of their mouth weren’t in the top ten guesses. In fact, they weren’t on the list at all. “Wait,” they said, looking over to Asriel for a moment. “Your mom’s name is _Tori_?”

Asriel blinked, trying and failing to keep the confusion from his face. “I suppose you could shorten her name to that?” He scrambled to try and think of where Chara was going with this and came up completely empty.

Chara got a huge grin on their face and turned back to Toriel. “Well, seeing as how you share a name with one of the most awesome singers on the face of the planet, I think we’ll get along _just_ fine.”

Realization snapped into place inside Asriel’s thought processes, and he turned to his mom, who was wearing a slightly confused look of her own. “Chara’s a really big fan of music. They know a lot and have really varied tastes. I think they’re talking about Tori Amos. Do you remember her, Mom? I shared a couple of her songs with you once.”

Toriel smiled. “Oh, yes, I do remember. She had a lovely voice. Despite the, er, questionable subject matter of her music.” Asriel thought he’d picked out the _safer_ songs off of the disc, but apparently something had slipped through. Regardless, Toriel gestured into the dining area. “Well, dinner is almost ready, so why don’t you two come in and sit at the table?”

Asriel grinned. “Yeah! Here, I’ll pull a chair out for you!” he said.

Chara seemed to be having none of it, though. In fact, they just gave a little laugh that was half-chuckle and half-snort and said, “Oh come on. You don’t have to be a _gentleman_ for me or anything. Nobody _actually_ does that anymore, you know?”

Toriel replied from the kitchen area, “It’s how Asriel was _raised_. I would be surprised if he _didn’t_ offer to be gentlemanly to a friend. And honestly, he is old-fashioned because we are an old-fashioned kind of family, at least when it comes to being nice to people.”

“Right.” Asriel said, moving over to the table. Toriel had gone all-out in making the place look, for lack of a better term, home-y. She had gotten out the nice plates, the lace tablecloth, and had even gone so far as to trim a few of the flowers that showed up at her house every once in awhile and place them in a decorative vase as a centerpiece. Asriel had never told his mom where the flowers _actually_ came from, and honestly he knew that the flowers themselves were more of an apology than any real indication of future interactions. Nevertheless, he had always figured it was better to pretend they came from Asriel _himself_ , because they may as well have, all things considered. This time, the flowers were bright and yellow, perfect for having dinner with a new friend. Yellow in floral design did symbolize friendship and joy, after all, or so his dad had taught him.

When Chara saw the table, they started to visibly shake a little bit. Asriel was paying enough attention to them that he saw what was about to happen a few seconds before it did. Therefore, when Chara’s knees started to buckle, he already had the chair out and was guiding them into it. He noticed, again, how very _small_ they appeared. This just drove home to him how little food they had been able to consume recently. Suddenly being in an environment where one could smell an actual dinner being prepared must be extremely overwhelming to them, he figured. “Um, here, can I get you something?” he asked them, wanting to fulfill his duties as a good host and get them _something_ to fill their stomach sooner rather than later.

They were focused intently on the flowers in the centerpiece as they said, in a shaky voice, “Water. Just, I’ll be fine if I can have some water.” Their hands were clenched tightly in their lap and they seemed to be putting all of their concentration into staying upright in the chair.

Asriel nodded. “Water it is. Hey mom, is the bread ready yet? We can have that as an appetizer, right?” He wanted Chara to be able to appreciate the meal, and anyway eating too much too quickly would just make them sick. A little bread might stabilize them enough that the rest of the meal could be savored, he thought.

“Oh, sure, child. It should be cool enough to eat!” Toriel said from the kitchen. She handed Asriel a pitcher of water. “Here, fill the glasses on the table and then clear off the decorations to make room for the dishes. We’ll be eating family style tonight.” she said with a wink to him.

This warmed Asriel inside more than he thought it would. This was how he always remembered dinner when he was young, when he, his mom, and his dad _were_ a family together. His mom would make these wonderful dishes and set them all on the table on large platters, and everyone would fill their own plates. It was an experience that some restaurants tried to emulate but were never _really_ able to replicate, in his mind. The fact that this was how his mother wanted to first interact with Chara told him just _how_ much of an effort _she_ was making to be welcoming to someone he had accepted as a friend.

He took the pitcher and filled the three glasses of water at the table, starting with Chara’s. As he proceeded to remove the vase of flowers and the surrounding hand-crafted decorations from the center of the table, he saw Chara down half the glass of water. By the time he returned to the table and Toriel had set the bread down in the center, Chara’s shaking had subsided a little bit and they were reaching for a knife to slice a large chunk off of the end of the fresh-baked loaf. They proceeded to do exactly what Asriel expected they would and eviscerated the chunk of bread with the intensity of a lion in the savannah. After a few bites, they even started to exclaim, “This is f-”. Asriel caught their eye and they quickly amended that statement. “...fantastic!”

Asriel let out a breath. Chara had passed the first test, the ability to self-edit. This was a good thing. His nervousness started to evaporate as his mother started to bring out the rest of dinner. Asriel watched as Chara’s eyes practically devoured the dishes even before their stomach could have a chance. One by one, Toriel brought out bowls filled to the brim with fiery amber spaghetti noodles sprinkled with parmesan and oregano and bejeweled with fat and juicy meatballs. She then brought out a side platter for each of them with slices of white, crumbling cheese, a tangled pile of burgundy grapes, and a bundle of crisp leaves of lettuce with tiny tomatoes inside. While she did this, Asriel got up and grabbed bottles of fizzy Italian soda for each of them. His mother got her favorite dark pink raspberry, he claimed the peach flavor for himself, and he picked green kiwi for Chara. The color matched their car and clothing, after all.

If there were any doubt that Chara would accept the meal, it was gone the instant the table was set. With as fast as Chara gobbled the food, Asriel was kind of surprised they didn’t just shove their whole face into the bowl. Regardless, at least Asriel didn’t have to worry about Chara saying anything off-color, as their mouth was currently quite occupied.

_~~~_

This ability self-edit did not last for the entirety of dinner, though Asriel couldn’t really blame them for losing their composure when they did.

“Wait. What the hell did you just say?” they said, and in that instant Asriel saw the mask fall from their face completely, exposing the surprise and astonishment underneath. They looked from Toriel, to Asriel, then back to Toriel as if waiting for one of them to crack and reveal the punchline of a very elaborate joke at their expense.

Toriel, to her credit, was very patient here, probably realizing the same as Asriel himself had that Chara had been taken completely for a loop. She calmly repeated what she had just asked Chara, the question that had cracked the mask in the first place. “I said, child, would you like to stay here with us?”

Chara nervously fumbled with their fingers, not trusting themself to pick up another meatball and risk dropping it on the pristine tablecloth. “You mean just for tonight, right? I mean, I’m not saying _no_ , I just want to be sure I understand what you’re saying.” Asriel realized immediately that they were trying to find the catch, the angle, the one reason why this was something other than what it appeared on the surface.

_Just like them._

Toriel shook her head. “No, not just for tonight.” she said, just as calmly, seeming to realize that she was having to explain something very simple to someone who wasn’t going to immediately comprehend it. “For as long as you need. Someone your age… should not be out on their own. That is something I cannot accept. So, if you wish it, you can stay here. There will be food, and a roof over your head.”

Chara looked at Toriel again. Then at the food, at Asriel, at the food again, then just looked around at the dining room. Then they looked down at their own hands, which were opening and closing reflexively in nervousness, tension, or something more. Asriel couldn’t tell. Finally, they took a deep breath and clenched their jaw. “No.” they said. “No, I won’t. I don’t need it. I don’t need charity.”

Asriel’s outburst was so immediate that he even surprised himself a little. “Chara, yes you _do_! You’re _literally starving_!”

Chara’s gaze shot to his face in an instant. “Ree, don’t you _dare_ tell me what I need or don’t need.”

Toriel’s voice cut over both of them. “ _Enough_.” she said. “Asriel, calm down. I know you want to help Chara. You _have_ helped them. You brought them food, and you brought them _here_. Nobody at this table doubts how much you want to help Chara.”

Asriel gulped, took a breath, and then rested his paws back on the table. “Yes, Mom.”

Toriel nodded. Then, they turned to Chara. “And I apologize to you, Chara. I was not clear to you. This is _not_ charity. I will have expectations of you if you are going to live under this roof.”

Chara blinked, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I get it. What do you want me to do?”

Toriel leveled the considerable weight of their gaze onto Chara, who, to their credit, sat there and took it, unmoving and unflinching. Then, Toriel said, “You will continue to attend school. You will conduct yourself there in the manner I would expect my own child to. You will not get detention, you will not get suspended, and you will not fail any of your classes.”

Chara’s eyes darted to Asriel for a brief instant in understanding, then returned to meet Toriel’s. “And?”

Toriel nodded again. “And you will respect all of the other rules of this household. There will be no drinking. There will be no smoking. There will be no staying out past curfew. There will be no going out after dark unless you are with a trusted friend. Dreemurrs don’t _do_ those things. Do you understand?”

Asriel’s surprise was just as complete as Chara’s had been earlier when he saw Chara just nod and say, “Yes, ma’am.”

Toriel gave them a warm smile. “Good. It will not be so hard, child. I _want_ you to succeed, after all. Now.” she said, standing up. “Shall we all have some dessert? After that, I can show you where your room will be, and Asriel can help you get some of the important things out of your car.”

Asriel looked over to Chara and tried to get a read on what they were thinking. Their face was completely blank, but he didn’t think it was because they were trying to hide anything. If he had to guess, it was more because they had been taken so completely off-guard that they hadn’t had time to think about what the proper response _should_ be. After a moment, they just said, “My… room.”

In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to give them a world in which this and every other most basic concept of existence weren’t such a surprise to them anymore.

_~~~Chara~~~_

_My room._

After dinner, Asriel wasted no time in complying with Tori’s directive to unload their car. Chara had insisted on going with him under the guise of pointing out what was important. In reality, it had been more to stop him from sticking his paw into something that contained a knife and unwittingly injuring himself. On top of that, there were some things in the car that hadn’t even been _theirs_ , and while they had gone through most of it in the past few months to determine what was worth keeping and what wasn’t, if anyone was going to be surprised by the contents of the Charamobile, they wanted to be the _first_ one that happened to.

Luckily, there hadn’t been any surprises, and Asriel helped them carry the travel cooler, their meager school supplies, a couple closed suitcases that they would have to go through at some point, and several bags of clothing that _desperately_ needed to be laundered. Clean clothing was the next thing they were going to run out of, right after fuel for the car. The fact that the clothing was being taken care of before the fuel was a slight rearrangement of priorities that they were mentally trying to deal with, but they were also thankful as things had been about to get _real_ awkward, _real_ fast.

_My room._

Tori had taken them aside and showed them how to work the household laundry machine, which, other than the fact that they didn’t have to stuff quarters into it in order to run it, hadn’t ended up being too different from what they had been dealing with at the laundromat ever since they had started living in their car. Even so, they still just sat there and looked at it for a few moments before deciding it really was okay that they could use this appliance without paying for it somehow. It was at that point that they realized that ever since they had walked into the door of the house, they had been running mental calculations on how much they owed Ree and Tori for all the things they had used or consumed that evening.

Well. Except for the brief moment their brain had short-circuited at seeing the yellow flowers.

They were very specifically _not_ thinking about that.

_My room._

The room that Tori led them to was nice. Simple. Quiet. Orderly. The very picture of a guest room that was never used due to there not being an abundance of guests to use it. Chara had never quite understood that concept, even though they _had_ seen such rooms before. Why have space that one didn’t _use_ for anything? They supposed it _was_ being used now, for a time, at least. For however long this lasted.

The order of the room was broken by the small pile of Chara’s things that were piled in one corner. In contrast to how they had been stored in the car, when Ree had brought the things up to the bedroom he had tried to arrange them in some sort of orderly manner. It was sweet, in a way. He put more care into their things than even they did sometimes. He even left one of his shirts for them, realizing, correctly, that with all the laundry going on they may not have something to sleep in.

Their eyes widened a little when they saw that shirt.

They walked over it, slowly, quietly, as if it would jump up and scamper off if it realized they were coming for it.

_Just like Ree himself should._

They squeezed their eyes shut and shook their head. Those thoughts were trying to worm into their mind again now that they had been forcibly lifted out of crisis mode through the generous application of protein and carbohydrates.

They opened their eyes again once they realized the inner Chara wasn’t going to be making a prolonged appearance just yet. Then, they took the few more steps toward the shirt that was carefully folded and set atop the luggage they were really going to have to go through one of these days. With a shaky hand, they reached out and grabbed the shirt, unfolding it and holding it out in front of them to get a good look at it. Of course, the garment was about twice as big as they were, especially after the involuntary crash diet that was the past couple weeks of their life. It was soft, black, and had an emblem of a prism diffusing a beam of white light into a rainbow.

_The same shirt he was wearing the night we met._

Chara blinked again, their throat tightening and tears welling up in their eyes. They quickly wiped _those_ away when they heard footsteps in the hallway. They turned and pasted a smile on their face as Tori and Ree appeared at the door.

“I just wanted to make sure you were settled in, child.” Tori said. “And to let you know that I am going to be awake downstairs reading while the rest of the laundry gets done. So if there is something you require, please let me know.”

Chara didn’t exactly know how to respond to that, so they just nodded. “Uh. Yeah. I’ll. I’ll let you know. I should be fine. I think. I don’t know.”

Tori nodded in return and didn’t push any further. Ree gave them a smile and said, “My bedroom is just across the wall here, okay?” he gestured toward the wall of the guest bedroom that separated it from the next one over. “So you can knock on my door if there’s anything you need, too. Uh. Tomorrow, I can help you arrange the room like you want. I can even see if the old computer still runs, and you can have that in here, too.”

Chara’s mouth fell open for a brief moment, and then they quickly closed it. They were being _supremely_ uncool and they knew it. The truth was, though, they still just didn’t know what to say or do in this situation, so for the first time in their entire existence, the ‘fight or flight’ instinct took the invisible third option: ‘freeze’.

Thankfully, they were saved by Tori, who seemed a lot more perceptive in this instance than her son was. “Well, Chara is probably tired, and _you_ have homework to work on. You _both_ do.” she said, eyeing Chara’s school backpack pointedly. “And while I do not mind you working on it together, I feel like Chara should have some settling-in time tonight.”

Chara finally was able to move their head a little in a slight nod. “Uh. Yeah. Kinda tired too. Tomorrow’s Saturday, so. Uh. Yeah. Just kinda gonna probably try and sleep?” they said in what they hoped wasn’t _too_ fast and awkward of a vocal cadence.

Asriel smiled. “Yeah, I get it! Again, just let me or Mom know if you need something, okay?” As Ree and Tori turned to leave Chara to their own devices, Ree turned one more time and said, “Goodnight, Chara!”

“‘Ni-” they said, the word catching in their throat in a way they tried to pass off as just an ultra-cool _super_ -shortening of that word. Once they heard the footsteps far enough down the hall, they shakily went over to the door again and closed it. Rather than just pull it shut, they slowly guided the door in its arc, listening for the characteristic creaks and squeaks that every door developed eventually. Satisfied that they had properly noted the noises the door made in case they heard those noises any _other_ time. They then turned the knob and slowly pulled the door closed until it latched, judging whether or not they could do that completely silently if necessary. Only then did they let out a breath and walk over to their things.

_Step one, secure the exit. Note the sounds of entry._

They started to go through the rest of their mental checklist then.

_Step two. Check the walls and windows and closets._

They glanced around, then made a circuit of the room, opening the closet, noting any places that things could be stashed, and seeing whether the window could be used as a method of entry or exit in a pinch. Given that there was no tree outside the window, or any other real way to get up or down, they judged the success of such an endeavor to be about thirty percent or so.

 _Step three. Make sure I can see the door at all times._  
  
Thankfully, they didn’t have to move the bed for this one, as the headboard was up against the opposite wall of the room from the door. Chara didn’t know if they had enough energy even after the plentiful and filling dinner to move the bed on their own, and they weren’t about to ask for help.

_Step four. Hide the knives._

There was one thing they had gotten out of their car _themself_ and not let anyone else see. This was a small satchel that ordinarily would have held a couple books and a notebook, or a small tablet computer if that were something they would have ever had. Instead, the satchel contained six knives of various sizes that they had acquired over the past few months. They lay them out on the floor in front of them and took stock.

_One folding pocketknife, one switchblade, one chef’s knife, one paring knife, and two kitchen knives._

The folding knife, which was the one they always had in their pocket even at school, went under their pillow. This was the obvious choice, as it simply wouldn’t do for them to accidentally cut themself in their sleep. The rest got hidden in various places around the room that they could easily get to no matter where in the room they happened to _be_ , but not so obvious that an intruder would look there _first_.

After the last knife was in place, they stood in the middle of the room, went through the mental checklist one more time, and sighed, finally satisfied for the moment. Then, they looked at the bed. They took a couple hesitant steps over to it, examined it for a moment, and then, tentatively, reached out and poked it with a finger.

It was soft.

They realized, in that moment, that underneath all the tension, they were _exhausted_. They kicked off their shoes and then unbuttoned their shirt and shrugged out of it, tossing it to the floor. Then, they slid off their pants, leaving them in a pile atop the shirt. They grabbed Ree’s black shirt and slid it on over their head. It came down almost to their knees.

It, too, was soft.

They shuffled over to the bed and collapsed on it. It welcomed them with all of its promise of rest and comfort. They immediately crawled under the blanket and grabbed one of the oversized pillows, wrapping their arms around it and clinging to it as if it would vanish into thin air like a cloud depleted of rain. As soft as the pillow was, they didn’t really know that it _wouldn’t_.

Even with how exhausted they were, sleep didn’t come.

They tossed.

They turned.

They tried to punch the pillow down into some kind of shape that would support their neck at all.

They got rid of the pillow entirely and tried laying on their own arm.

Finally, they gave a low, short growl and sat up, looking around the darkened room. They had no idea what the problem was, initially. Everything was the way it _should_ be for someone who was trying to get a good night’s sleep. Soft bed, warm blankets, dark and quiet room. They thought about all of this for about a full minute before it hit them. All the things they mentally listed as ideal sleeping conditions? _Those_ were the problem.

The bed was too soft.

The blankets were too warm.

The room was too dark, and was in fact so quiet they could hear every little creak in the walls and every noise from the outside. Which was also too quiet, when they were used to sleeping in a parking lot and drifting off to the sounds of highway traffic.

Well. They couldn’t make cars start driving down the street just to help them sleep, but the other things? Those, they could do something about.

They climbed out of bed, walked over to the pile of belongings in the corner, and rummaged through them until they found a pastel-green hoodie. Then, they went over to the the nightstand and turned on the small reading lamp there. They draped the hoodie over the top of it and arranged it until just a little bit of light got through. After a moment of further consideration, they nodded, figuring it was about as much light as a streetlight would produce through tinted windows.

Then they took the blanket off of the bed and curled up beneath the nightstand. The floor was carpeted, but it wasn’t _nearly_ as soft as the bed. It also didn’t have quite as much give to it as the driver’s seat of their car, but it was at least _closer_.

They pondered this for a moment as they leaned back against the nightstand, blanket around them and head propped up to face the door of the bedroom.

_Man. I’m… really fucked up._

This time, though, they didn’t toss and turn, and after a few moments they were out as their subconscious finally allowed the exhaustion to take hold and pull them into sleep.

_~~~Asriel~~~_

Upon waking up the next morning, Asriel had gotten out of bed pretty much immediately. This was a new thing for him, or at least substantially different from how he had been for the past year or so. Usually when he woke up, it took him about twenty minutes to even start to care about _trying_ to get out of bed. When his mom had asked about it, he had just chalked it up to her as realizing he wasn’t a morning person. He didn’t even know if he _could_ admit to himself that it went deeper than that.

This time, however, he rolled right out of bed, put on some clothing, and went downstairs to help his mom with Saturday morning breakfast. There wasn’t a _lot_ to help with, but he had to admit that it felt good helping her mix up pancake batter and chop some fresh fruit. The part where he was doing it _for_ someone probably helped out with that a lot. He didn’t know what his new housemate liked, since they devoured everything he had given them at lunch with little regard to personal taste, so he went with something he knew would go over well. He chopped some apples into fine pieces and added them to the mix along with some cinnamon and sugar.

Once all that was done, he decided it was probably time to actually let their guest know there was going to be food available shortly. He grinned and started back up the stairs. There was something incredibly exciting about this that was more than just having a friend staying here with him. It was more like, now that Chara was _here_ , they were safe. They could start becoming happy. They didn’t have to worry about starving, or sleeping somewhere that would cause them back and joint problems, or being attacked during the night. His mom was taking care of them now, and then he could introduce them to his dad, and then they could just spend time being _friends_ with him.

His cheeks heated up as a mixture of warmth and shame radiated through him. This wasn’t _about_ him, and he had to remember that. And anyway, how pathetic was it that he was so thrilled at the thought of living with a friend? Did he miss Undyne _too much_ when she had to go to different classes, or to boxing lessons, or to her actual home? Was he that tired and numb and deprived after he said goodbye to his online friends for the night or when none of them seemed to be around to go on a raid in one of the games they played together or to reblog each other on FaceJournal?

Was he really that clingy and lonely?

He didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to think about _Chara_ , and that drove everything else from his mind. He walked past his room to the guest bedroom door and knocked on it. “Hey Chara? Breakfast is almost ready!”

Several noises carried through the door at this point.  
  
“Whahuh-?!?”  
  
_THUNK._

_CLATTER._

“Fuck. Ow.”

Asriel’s concern was immediate and all-consuming. “Hey Chara? Are you okay? I’m coming in, okay?” he said, a couple seconds before he turned the doorknob and opened the door slowly enough for it to make its characteristic creaking sounds. Whatever he was expecting when he opened the door, it wasn’t what he saw. The comforter had been pulled off the bed, Chara was on the floor wrapped up in it, and the lamp, which was for some reason covered with a green hoodie, was on top of them.

He just looked at the scene for a couple of seconds, then said, “I’m… uh, really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you fall off the bed! I didn’t realize you’d be startled!”

Chara’s cheeks were bright red as they started to extract themself from the blanket. “Yeah. Fall off the bed.” they said, squirming to nudge the lamp off of themself without breaking it or anything. “That’s totally what I did. It wasn’t like I slept on the floor all night, right?” they said, giving a nervous little laugh. “Because that would be really dumb, wouldn’t it.”

Asriel once again looked at the bed, at Chara, at how the blanket was wrapped around them, and how the hoodie seemed to be draped _over_ the lamp intentionally. “You… what?” he said.

“...Was… a dumbass and… slept on the floor?”

He took a couple steps toward them and bent down to help them place the lamp back on the nightstand. “I don’t understand, Chara. Was the bed uncomfortable? Or was something else wrong? You can tell me, you know.”

Chara just looked at the lamp, as if verifying that it really, _really_ wasn’t broken, and then let him take it. Once the lamp was back in place, Asriel offered a paw to them to help them up. He noticed as they got out from under the blanket that they _were_ wearing the Pink Floyd shirt that he left there for them the previous evening. This made his heart beat with a warm satisfaction that he really had done something helpful for them after all.

“It’s fine, Ree. It’s perfect.” they said. “It’s just, look. I’m gonna say something, and it’s gonna sound batshit insane. I’m just warning you of that up front, okay?”

“Um, okay?” Asriel replied. It seemed like the morning had barely started and was already going differently than he had been imagining. He wondered if that was how the entire rest of his life was going to be from here on.

“Ree, it’s _perfect_.” they repeated. “The bedroom. The bed. The shirt.” they tugged at the oversized t-shirt in emphasis. “It’s just not what I’m used to. All _this_ is perfect, I’m just not _used_ to things that are perfect. Look.” they gestured to the bed, then. “I _tried_ to sleep in the bed, Ree. I _tried_. And it just felt _wrong_. Perfect, but _wrong_.” Finally, they let out a long sigh. “God. That sounds fucked up even to _me_.”

This really drove home to Asriel why he needed to remember that none of this was in any way about him, and why it _shouldn’t_ be. He tried to make all the sympathy he felt for Chara show on his face. He wanted them to know how much he _cared_ that they were okay. “Chara, you’ll get used to it. I’m sure of it.” he said. “It’s just that you’ve slept in so many terrible places for so long that you’ve accepted it as normal. But now, you know it’s not, right?”

Chara visibly shivered a little and crossed their arms to try and ward off a chill that Asriel suspected had nothing to do with the temperature of the air in the room. “Ree. I know what you’re saying.” they said. “I know you mean well. It’s just. This was _one night_. This, right here?” they gestured with a hand to what Asriel understood was the very concept of the room itself and everything it represented. “ _This_ was the abnormal thing for me. It takes time, Ree. More time than just one night can give. But I’m trying. That’s all I can promise, is that I’ll _try_.”

Asriel nodded. “I know that last night I kind of snapped at you a little. And I’m sorry for that. I was just scared for you. I was scared that if I didn’t help you, I would _lose_ you. Literally. It wasn’t calling you weak or saying you couldn’t look after yourself.”

Chara looked up at him. Once again, the sight of his shirt on them just drove home how small they were and how big _he_ was. This still made him feel self-conscious just as much as it made him worry about how long they hadn’t been getting enough to eat. Finally, they said, “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you. So, thank you. It’s going to take awhile for me to be comfortable with _any_ of this, but…” they took one more deep breath and looked up into his eyes. “Ree? Even if it’s just in the short term, I… I think you _saved_ me.”

Asriel didn’t know what to say. It was what he _wanted_ to happen, but what did a person say when faced with that reality? He didn’t know. So, he did the only thing he could think of doing and held out his arms for them in what he hoped was the universal gesture for offering a hug.

Chara looked at him for a moment, considering. Wary, but not angry. Then, in a soft voice, they asked, “...Aren’t you worried I’ll try to kiss you again?”

Asriel shook his head. “I know the kind of person you are, Chara. And that person is my friend.”

Chara slowly stepped forward and rested their head against his chest. As his arms rested around their shoulders, their own arms circled his midsection. He felt the _strength_ there. Chara might not have a lot of muscle, but what was _there_ had a purpose. There was no way he could ever doubt Chara’s strength after feeling the way they hugged him. They murmured against his chest, “Thanks. For the shirt. It really helped. It… felt like you were right there, you know?”

Asriel’s heart raced and his eyes closed briefly in the bliss of their words, their gratitude, their embrace, and the knowledge that it was _his_ presence, however faint, that given them comfort when nothing else had. It had been a very long time since someone had hugged him who wasn’t his parents. Undyne wasn’t really much for hugs, or at least not in the same way. Her hugs tended to crack ribs and also sometimes led to some kind of wrestling hold, which wasn’t the same kind of intimacy at _all_. Besides that, even if he hadn’t “grown out” of needing that kind of physical closeness, it was something he would constantly be teased and insulted for because it wasn’t something that guys _did_.

Asriel smiled as Chara’s hold on him tightened briefly and they leaned into the hug just a little more. Then, they said, “Uh. Not to interrupt what is obviously a _moment_ here, but you _did_ say something about breakfast when you knocked on the door, right?”

Asriel chuckled a little. “Yeah. Fruit and pancakes. Mom was going to make plain ones because she wasn’t sure what you liked, but I put some chopped apples and cinnamon in them. But we can always make a second batch. You can put pretty much anything in pancakes. Blueberries, strawberries, snails, slugs, even chocolate chips if you want!”

Chara took a step back so they could properly look up at Asriel. “Are you telling me that you can put _chocolate_ in _pancakes_? Don’t dangle this in front of me and then snatch it away at the last second. That would be _too_ cruel.”

Asriel laughed. “Oh, it’s something we do quite a bit. It’s really good! And I can’t believe you’ve never had them before!” This last part slipped out before his brain could stop it. Because of course it was possible they never had chocolate chip pancakes before. He hoped Chara didn’t latch onto that verbal misstep. “Anyway, let’s go fix that. Right away. It’s practically an emergency!” he said, gesturing toward the door.  
  
Chara grinned. “Lemme put on something that isn’t a dress and I’ll be right down, okay?” they said, even going so far as to twirl in the oversized shirt to illustrate that with the proper application of a belt, it really _could_ be a dress on them.

Even Asriel had to admit it would be an awesome one.

“See you at the table!” he said, waving as he walked out of the room. On his way down, he stopped and thought about something Chara had said. They hadn’t even attempted to make it an offhand comment, which meant they really did mean it.

_“You saved me.”_

He suddenly realized they hadn’t _just_ been talking about bringing them home and giving them dinner and a safe, warm bed. What would have happened if they hadn’t been at the same show that night? Or what would have happened if they hadn’t been attending the same school? Who would have looked out for them, given them lunch, made sure they didn’t fall asleep in class?

Who would have cared?

As Chara practically bounced out of the guest bedroom on bare feet, wearing ripped jeans and Asriel’s oversized shirt with a belt cinched around their waist, Asriel smiled and held out his arm for them. They took it and grinned. “Come on. Chocolate goodness awaits!” As they walked down to breakfast, he knew that even if no one else cared what was or wasn’t normal for Chara, _he_ would care.

Always.

_~~~_

_Yeah, tomorrow I might wake up nice and clean_

_And I might believe the things I said I didn't mean_

_And this might turn and wind up just the way we'd dreamed_

_And I might become the things I swore I'd always be_

_~~~_


	4. Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the initial adjustment of Chara starting to live in the Dreemurr household, things kind of settle into a holding pattern. Over the next few weeks, Asriel starts to realize that Chara may have even more to their past than they have let on. Asriel has his own past, though, and he can't avoid it forever no matter how much he wants to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took longer for us to write than we had initially intended, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, real life kind of caught up with us for awhile. Second of all, we show a number of characters here that neither of us have a lot of experience writing. Lastly, we had intended for this to be a short bridge chapter to show some shades of what normal life looks like around Curie High, except that our short bridge chapter ended up being twice as long as we'd planned on it being.
> 
> Oops!
> 
> That being said, there is a lot we wanted to show here that deserved scene time. Primarily, we want to indicate that Chara isn't the only one with secrets or a troubled past. Additionally, for all that Chara is trying to apply themself and do everything they're 'supposed' to, it's not exactly easy for them. As much as Asriel wants to be the one to 'fix' everything wrong in their life, it's never that easy.
> 
> So in the end, there's actually a lot to unpack here, and this chapter serves as a bit of setup for the next major arc!
> 
> Playlist suggestions for this chapter:  
> I See Stars - Youth  
> The Dangerous Summer - Color
> 
> Special Thanks to Perry for suggesting improvements for Temmie's dialogue. That was one of the things that was the hardest for us!

~~~

_We are the reckless,_

_We are the wild youth_

_Chasing visions of our futures_

_~~~_

From the files of W. S. Gaster:

Biology, 10th Grade

Assignment 1: “Write one paragraph about what does or does not excite you regarding the subject of Biology”

Excerpts of Student Responses:

Asriel Dreemurr

Biology

8/23/201X

Period 4

My favorite thing about biology are plants and flowers. My Dad is a florist and taught me how to grow my own fruits and vegetables. I can brew my own tea too! But to be honest, I think my passion really started when my parents took me to see Little Shop of Horrors in the local theater. I didn't see many shows where the bad guy wins. I know it's bad of me to think this, but it was so cool seeing all those plants wreck everything and take over the world! I keep a venus flytrap by my window and let it bite my pencil now and then. It really catches all the flies! I'd love to study carnivorous plants this year.

(Teacher’s Note: Add more interactive modules to the plant-based sections of the course. The son of Asgore Dreemurr will find these the most interesting.)

 

Charade

Biology

8/23/201x

Period 4

You know what? Trees are pretty chill. They sort of don't care what goes on around them, they don't care who you are or what you believe in. They just kinda hang out, drop some leaves or an apple on you every once in awhile, provide those annoying chipmunks or squirrels or whatever a nice hard place to stick their nuts in the winter, and mostly could care less whether you live or die. Because let's face it, trees will probably outlive all of us. Smug jerks.

Anyway, I don't hate Biology yet.

(Teacher’s Note: Watch this one. They will be trouble.)

 

Riley Weiss

Biology

8/23/201X

Period 4

There's lots I love about Biology! The question is whether you want the normal answer or the creepy answer. I definitely love bioluminescent things though, like jellyfish. Jellyfish are gorgeous. There's actually an immortal jellyfish that reverses its own aging process, sort of like a real life Benjamin Button. It'd be cool if we studied it to help people live long, but not to the point we become immortal too. That'd suck. You know what also sucks? Getting stung by an Irukandji jellyfish. Have fun looking up that one in your spare time.

(Teacher’s Note: I believe I just found my favorite student and possible successor. Train him well.)

 

PAPYRUS THE SKELETON

THE LOGY OF BIO

8/23/201X

PERIOD THE FOURTH

EVERY MORNING, I GREET THE SUN AND BIRDS AND FLOWERS WITH A WIDE SMILE AND A CHEERFUL ATTITUDE. I DRIVE MYSELF AND MY BROTHER TO SCHOOL, AND I GET TO SPEND THE DAY LEARNING WITH MY AWESOME FRIENDS. BIOLOGY, BEING THE STUDY OF HOW BIRDS, FLOWERS, BROTHERS, AND FRIENDS CAME TO BE, WILL BE A GREAT EXPERIENCE FOR ME (EVEN THOUGH I DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND HOW SPAGHETTI STAYS INSIDE A SKELETON, MUCH LESS PROVIDES PROPER DAILY NUTRITION)! I WILL VASTLY ENJOY THIS, THE STUDY OF HOW WE ALL BECAME COOL, UNIQUE SPAGHETTI-LOVING INDIVIDUALS!

(Teacher’s Note: Why did I ever let him sign up for theater?)

 

sans

biology

8/23/201x

period four

its kind of wrong that there is a fake skeleton hanging in the corner

(Teacher’s Note: Sigh.)

_~~~ Asriel~~~_

Art class was something that Asriel had been looking forward to in high school. He had been drawing on his own for years, of course. He mostly used the tried and true canvas of high school students the world over: notebook margins. Sometimes his drawings escaped the confines of those margins and crept outward to consume entire pages of notes like ivy on a fence. This was accurate as the subjects of his art were a variety of flora, both real and fictional. Art class was his opportunity to try and branch out, so to speak, and learn what actual artistic style was.

The downfall of all of these aspirations was that the school’s art teacher was a visually and aurally incomprehensible monster by the name of ‘Temmie’, and that he had the distinct misfortune of being in that art class with Chara.

Temmie entered the room in some approximation of a motion that didn’t quite match the description of ‘saunter’, ‘slither’, or ‘stride’, and announced, “2day tem talk of pONTILLZUM!!1 many dotz, one PAttrn, nu ARTZ!! Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, BIG NAMZ!” Temmie had a way of speaking that Asriel got the feeling didn’t include such things as capitalization or punctuation or even accurate spelling. Thankfully, he could mostly piece together what she was talking about from context.

Chara, who spent most of art class sitting next to Asriel and staring at their canvas in absolute frustrated confusion, muttered under their breath, “Oh my god, you walking meme, make some damn sense for once.”

Asriel nudged them with his elbow a little harder than he had to. He actually wanted to learn in this class, and Chara continually made that as hard for him as it seemed to be for Chara themself. “Shh. Pay attention.”  
  
Chara rolled their eyes and resumed staring at their canvas. Asriel knew he wasn’t going to get through to them on this particular subject, but he was more than a little annoyed that Chara seemed to be intent on poking at his attention span like a particularly annoying mosquito.

Temmie demonstrated the aforementioned technique on a canvas by using a series of green, brown, and blue dots to construct a picture of a tree under a blue sky. Asriel thought the technique was fascinating in its simplicity and was a great deconstruction of what went into creating an image that was just detailed enough for the brain of the observer to fill in the gaps. As he looked around the room, he could tell that most of the class was just seeing it as an easy assignment. Internally, he wept for them and their limited view of art.

After demonstrating the picture of the tree, Temmie turned to the class. “now class do… pONTILLZUM aRTZ!!!!1!!” She gestured to the picture of the tree with such enthusiasm that paint flew from their paintbrush to create a few more dots than intended.

Chara just looked at the painting of the tree. “So what you’re saying is, we just. Uh. Make dots.”

Temmie nodded. “yaYA!!! is gUD! Dotz!!!1!”

Chara looked at the tree, then their own canvas, then the array of paints in front of them. Asriel watched with a sinking feeling in his stomach as they seemed to come to some sort of decision that, from his experience, no good could result from. They took their paintbrush and Asriel watched in growing horror as they dipped the brush in red paint and placed one dot on each of their cheeks. Then they grinned, broadly. “Portrait of the artist as a young emoji!”

Temmie frowned.

Asriel nudged Chara with his elbow again, this time hard enough to actually jostle them a little. “Chara. Stop. Please take this seriously, okay?”

Chara wasn’t dissuaded in the slightest. “Does true art ever try to achieve its purpose, or does it achieve its purpose simply by being art?” The other students were starting to perk up at this. Nobody had ever tried to actually debate Temmie on the subject of what was or wasn’t art before. In fact, nobody had actually tried to debate Temmie at all, as just talking with her was enough to give most people a headache. Chara, however, was not most people, and if there was one thing Asriel had realized over the past few weeks of school it was that talking to _Chara_ for any length of time was also enough to give most people a headache for very different reasons.

Temmie got quite animated then. “tRU ARTZ acheevz puRrpus! Tru arTZ comz from HART<3!! tEM takE ArtZ sRz BzNz!!!1!!”

Chara leaned backward a little and pressed their hand to their forehead in a gesture that evoked the absolute cheesiest depiction of a tortured artist. “I’m _so_ misunderstood! I’m practically _Warhol_ over here!”

Asriel sighed. “Chara, could you please drop it?”

Temmie frowned at Chara, and when she spoke, the eclectic speech patterns and mannerisms vanished instantly. “Is this a joke? Are you having a chuckle? Ha ha, very funny. I’m the one with a degree.” She grinned as though nothing happened. “c tEM aftR class!!1!”

Chara glanced between Asriel and Temmie and muttered, “Nobody ever sends Sans to the office, and he does less than I do.” They turned back to their canvas. “At least I drew more than one dot.”

Sans snickered. “That’s because I can call it minimalism.”

Chara squeezed a tube of paint hard enough that Asriel was just barely fast enough to stop it from erupting all over their hand. “Chara, he’s just trying to troll you. Look. We’re going to be doing free drawing after this, so you can make whatever you want, okay?”  
  
Chara growled something unintelligible, but at least they set down the paint without throwing it at the back of the short skeleton’s round head. That was an improvement, Asriel told himself. It really was. It had to be.

_~~~_

“an dats aL! noW fREE4DRA!!!1W paintZ1 CAnvaS! CRATivtY! ARZT!” Temmie exclaimed, and then started to mill about the room in that random not-quite-walk of hers and pass out various art supplies.

When Temmie got to Chara, the red-haired human asked, “So, we really just draw, like, whatever, right?” They seemed to be waiting for some kind of parameters, as pretty much every assignment in every class they had so far had some kind of structure to it.

“yaYA!! StudiNTz draz wat U wants!!1!!” Temmie replied, handing Chara some paint to replace what they had slathered over their cheeks earlier in the class. She also handed Chara a couple of wet cloths to address the failed experiment in creative applications of paint.

Chara snorted. “Because, you see, I’ve been doing that in every _other_ class for like three weeks now, and nobody’s really appreciated my rare genius so far.”

Temmie nodded. “tEM cant waIT 2 C wat UZ draWZ!1!!” she said, and then trounced off to the next set of students.

Chara muttered under their breath. “...Chara sure can’t either…” and then started to stare at their canvas.

Asriel, of course, already knew what he was going to draw. He had been waiting for this kind of freedom for quite some time. Art lessons were nice and useful and he really learned a lot, but now he was going to create something that came from _his_ heart. There were a few movies that had really formed his style and general thoughts on the world when he was little, and it was one of those that was going to be his inspiration that day. He took a look at the paints but decided against them, preferring instead to go with his personal set of colored pencils.

He started out with the basic, simple shapes with his sketch pencil, and then started to elaborate from there. Slowly, the drawing began to take form and after half of the free drawing period had passed it was vaguely recognizable as a human youth of indeterminate age riding atop a flying serpentine creature with white fur. After he finished coloring the human’s hair a light brown color, he paused, looked at the picture, and then after glancing over at Chara added some streaks of dark red.

Chara’s drawing, he saw, was going less well. In fact, there was nothing on their canvas at all. As Asriel added more detail to his own drawing, Chara let out a frustrated growl. “Why the hell is this so hard when I’m _trying_ to do it?”

Sans, who had spent the entire class period so far applying brushstrokes to his own canvas, glanced over at Chara’s. “Whoa, cool, we both had the same idea! That’s a great-looking polar bear in a snowstorm!”

Chara frowned, standing up. “Oh come _on_. You’ve been painting the whole ti-” They got halfway around the desk and actually saw what was on Sans’ canvas and just pinched the bridge of their nose. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

Sans grinned, turning his painting slightly. Asriel had to chuckle a little as he saw that Sans had been applying liberal strokes of white paint to his white canvas. He still didn’t quite know how the skeleton could continually put so much effort into doing nothing, but he had to at least respect the commitment there.

“SANS!” The taller skeleton brother called in a booming voice from his position directly next to Sans. “YOU ARE NOT EVEN TRYING! DRAW SOMETHING! A SOCK! YOU SEE ENOUGH OF THEM ON THE FLOOR!”

“Ok.” Sans said, and then took a pencil and drew a small squiggly line before shrugging, setting the pencil down, and laying his head on the desk. Apparently now that Chara had seen what he was doing, his desire to follow through with the joke had vanished.

“SANS. THAT IS NOT A SOCK. THAT IS A SCRIBBLE.”

“No it’s not.”  
  
“WHAT IS IT THEN?”

“It’s a worm.”  
  
“THAT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A WORM TO ME. IT LACKS ORGANIC QUALITIES.”

“Ok.” Sans said again. He grabbed a pink marker and drew an outline of a worm. He then colored most of it in, save for a weird blank circle in the middle.

“SANS. YOU MISSED A SPOT. WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE MIDDLE UNCOLORED?”

“Oh, that? That’s the wormhole.”

“...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Chara sighed and grabbed Sans’ discarded black marker. Not to be outdone by the sheer intentional laziness present in everything the short skeleton had done in the past half-hour, Chara turned to their own canvas and drew two vertical lines with an upward curved line underneath. They squinted at the smile emoji, then grabbed the wet towel that Temmie had intended for them to use to wipe the red paint from their cheeks. Instead, they dabbed at it just enough to make it wet again and then, one after the other, they pressed their cheeks against the canvas to transfer blushing dots from their cheeks to the emoji. “There.” they said. “Art imitates life.”

Sans looked over at Chara’s drawing and shrugged. “Not gonna fly. Laziness has to be original. Gotta work harder at working less.”

Chara frowned. “I’m not being lazy, I’m just out of fucking ideas, you ass.”

Asriel was trying hard not to be distracted by the bickering, and it mostly succeeded. He’d gotten the basic image colored in and was now adding effects to the surrounding clouds and sky. It didn’t take him long to get so focused that he didn’t even notice that Chara had abandoned their own work and come over to watch his.

“Whoa.” they said. “That’s a pretty badass drawing of us. Why’re you a flying... furry sky eel?”

Asriel felt the skin under his fur heat up in a blush that he was once again glad no one else could see. “Oh! Uh. It’s Atreyu and Falcor from _The Neverending Story_. It was one of my favorite movies and books, growing up.” He expected Chara to start teasing him. Childhood movies were something he had stopped talking about some time ago because boys were expected to think those things were stupid. He only really engaged with them through his art anymore, and this class was the first time in years he had done that in a place that others could see.

Rather than tease him, Chara gave him a look that he had started to realize indicated absolute confusion on their part. “What the fuck is a ‘treyu’?” they said.

Asriel coughed then, genuinely surprised. “Not ‘a treyu’. It’s ‘Atreyu’. It’s his name. Have you really never seen _The Neverending Story_?” he asked, trying not to let that surprise creep into his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was make them feel silly because, well, he knew what it felt like.

Chara shrugged and looked down. “Uh. Nah. Didn’t really get to watch a lot of stuff when I was a kid.”

Asriel blinked. “What, no television or movies or anything? Or video games? Were you from one of those hyper-conservative families or something?”

Chara let out a short, harsh laugh. “You have _no_ idea.” Then, they looked back at the drawing. “Did this Atreyu person have red hair? ‘Cause I’ll be honest, it kinda looks like it’s me riding this Falcor thing. Which, to be clear, is pretty awesome.”

Asriel shook his head. “No, it was darker brown. And in the book he has green skin, but they didn’t do that part for the movie.” He smiled to Chara then. “It’s funny you should mention the similarity between you and him, though, because that’s part of the reason I did choose to draw Atreyu. You look so much like the movie version it’s kind of uncanny.” Part of that was a bit of wishful thinking on Asriel’s part, though the two had more in common than they didn’t when it came to appearance.

Chara’s cheeks reddened a little. “You really think so?”

Their blush made Asriel smile even more. He’d begun to realize that the reddening of their cheeks was an indication he’d caught them off-balance somehow. He didn’t know why that gave him a rush, but he suspected it had to do with how careful Chara was about guarding their reactions to things. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for the red hair thing, I’d probably have just fainted when you talked to me at the concert. I uh. May have had a pretty big crush on Atreyu when I was little. As much of a crush as a kid gets, anyway.”

This finally did cause Chara to laugh, though at least it wasn’t really directed at him or any admissions regarding his preferences. “There’s no way in hell I’m giving up my red hair. Not even for a potential swooning fanboy.” they said. Asriel believed them too. No matter how many different styles or mannerisms they cycled through on a day-to-day basis, they had yet to ever change their hair color.

Asriel grinned. “Good. ‘Cause you look great with red hair. It even matches your eyes. The effect is really…” he scrambled to think up something to end that statement with other than ‘pretty’. Despite how they met, he was self-conscious about doing anything that would constitute flirting. “...aesthetically pleasing.” That seemed to fit, he thought. It was art class, after all.

Chara snorted. “Yeah, just don’t look at ‘em too hard. Eyes are the windows of the soul, you know, and everyone knows gingers are soulless. So, you know. They might just gobble up anyone who looks into them.” They punctuated this by opening their eyes wide and using their hands to mime little chomping motions to either side of their face.

Asriel laughed. “Chara, if I had a soul to eat, someone else would have gotten it a long time ago, so I think you’re in good company. Anyway. I’m trying to get the shading of the sky just right so that you can really tell how fast they’re flying.” he said. “If it’s done right, it’ll really look awesome!”

Chara pulled over their chair and sat down next to him. “Let me see how you do it. I’ve got no talent for this stuff, and you’re _amazing_. Maybe some of it will rub off onto me.”

Asriel smiled. “I’ll do my best.” Usually, he got very, very self-conscious when someone tried to look over his shoulder when he drew. If it were anyone else, he knew it would have ended with an annoying request or some degree of teasing. For some reason he trusted Chara to not do either of those things, even though he had seen that Chara wasn’t above annoying or making fun of people. Maybe it was how earnest Chara had been about wanting to watch him draw as opposed to talking to him about the end results. They legitimately seemed to be showing an interest in what he was _doing_ , while giving him the space to actually _do_ it uninterrupted.

As a result, he started to open up a little about the process. “So, if I were using paint, I would use a blank piece of paper to test the colors before I applied them. With pencils it’s a bit different, but color theory still applies. You can start by picking a color close to what you want, and then using other colors to shade in or apply highlights where you want them.”

Chara leaned their chin on their hands, completely engrossed in watching him in the act of drawing. “Yeah. That’s the thing though. You have to kind of know what you want it to end up like, right? That’s why I’m not that good. I don’t have that. I just look at the paper and see… paper. I mean hell. Even Papyrus sees what he’s going for.”

Asriel glanced over at what the tall skeleton was drawing, and then chuckled. “Well, of course he does. He’s looking in a mirror. It’s like, every artist has some kind of reference, right?” Papyrus, it seemed, was drawing an incredibly detailed self-portrait. There were certain embellishments, though, such as a full head of golden hair, a long, flowing cape, and, somehow, abs.

Chara shrugged. “Okay, but he has a reference and then completely discards most of it.”

Asriel smiled. “It’s still a reference, even if you’re using it to know what you want to change. How do you decide what outfits to wear every morning even if you never change your hair?”

Chara blinked. “...Huh. I guess I’d never thought of it that way.” They cast a few glances around the room in search of a source of inspiration. After a moment, their eyes settled on Sans’ ‘artwork’. “Yeah, I’m about to add a dose of cold, hard reality.” They snatched a pencil from a nearby container, leaned over, and with a few deft strokes produced a stylized image of a bird swooping down to consume the worm.

Sans lifted his head and one of his eyes lit up a little. “Eh? Whazzat?”

“Natural selection in action.” Chara replied. “Someone’s about to get Darw-own’d.”

Sans’ head met the desk again. “Weak.” he said. “But I guess everyone’s style evolves from somewhere.”

Asriel sighed and turned to put the finishing touches on his drawing. He had to admit it came out pretty nicely, though not nearly as nice as it had been in his head. That seemed to be what happened with most of the things he drew. No matter how much time and effort he put into it, and no matter how good anyone else said the results were, he could never measure up to his own expectations. At least Temmie came over and gave her nodding approval. “yaYA!!! iz gud! uz gotz LOVELY STYL!e <3”

Chara did not receive such praise. Temmie just looked at Chara’s second attempt at ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Emoji’ and her eye just twitched a little. “tem expect MOAR.” she said, vaguely and confusingly gesturing at the lack of elaboration on the initial concept.

Chara sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Performance anxiety. You think it won’t happen to you, and then, welp.” they gestured to the painting and Sans made a ‘sad trombone’ noise in the background.

Temmie shook her head. “nono! iZ SAD!! char try 2 TROL TEM. tem expect WURS. tem expec EDGE! commintmet 2 jOKE! char jus repeat artZ like BAD SeqUILL!! no IMAjiNAshUN!11!!!”

Chara’s face turned bright red in embarrassment and frustration. “Oh, that is _it_.” They reached over for a pencil, intent on further defacement of Sans’ wormhole. Asriel was about to try and stop them. Even though he was reasonably certain Chara wasn’t going to stab anyone in full view of Temmie, he at least didn’t want them to get sent to the office _more_ than they already were.

The bell rang before the situation could escalate any further, and Temmie’s voice screeched out like several nails on several differently-textured chalkboards all at once. “bOiiIIII!!! C tEM in claz 2MORW! bring.... PAsTTELLz!! char bring... IMAjiNAshUN!1! mayB char make ArtZ? not SADneS??1!”

“Uh,” Chara said, dropping the pencil in a nearby paint cup. “But the whole, uh, ‘see you after class’ thing?”

Temmie shrugged. “saw char feels. artz AnGR... SADS... LOEV... srtong FEELz! char haz 2... jus shoW. char be char.”

As the rest of the class exited the room, Chara just stood there looking at their canvas and the half-hearted smiling face with bright red cheeks they had drawn. “Heh. Chara be Chara, huh? Easy for you to say. Chara doesn’t even know who Chara _is_.”

_~~~_

Asriel leaned against the wall as Chara gathered their things from their locker. They seemed to be a little bit out of it after art class, though he could also tell they were making an attempt to shake it off. They slung their backpack nonchalantly over one shoulder and slammed their locker closed as if they could just leave their bad mood in there and deal with it on Monday. “Hey, Ree, as it turns out, I gotta go by the office anyway. I have that thing with your mom, remember?”

Asriel snorted a little bit, as even when they didn’t mean to turn everything into a ‘your mom’ joke, the words just kind of came out that way. This alternated between annoying and kind of cute, and today it fell into the category of ‘vaguely amusing, but only because they didn’t intend it’. “Oh, yeah. Getting you some real paperwork here.” he said. He recalled that within an hour of meeting him, Chara had admitted to forging signatures to get into school. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time aside from being pretty impressed, but now he wondered if this would somehow end up making trouble for him or his mom. If it came down to it, he’d rather it be him.

Chara nodded. “Yeah. Uh. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll meet you out by the car afterwards?” he said. Even though he could ride home with his mom, he still preferred to ride with Chara out of habit. Their lack of an actual drivers’ license should terrify him, except that they were actually a very careful driver.

He hoped his mom didn’t ask about the license thing. Like, ever.

“Yeah, I’ll be out there. I’m gonna see if I can catch Undyne before she leaves for practice though, ‘kay?”

Chara nodded. “Yep. Make sure she still doesn’t want to step on my neck in the bad way, will ya? Still holding out for the good way.” they said with a chuckle, and headed off down the hall.

Asriel rolled his eyes and repressed another sigh. As far as he could tell, Chara had never actually flirted with Undyne and seemed content to make offhand comments in private. He didn’t really want to find out what would happen if Chara’s inability to keep their mouth shut extended any further than it did, though.

Asriel didn’t have to go very far to find Undyne. She was a year ahead of him, but all that really meant was that her locker was down a different hallway. As it was more than five minutes after the last bell on a Friday, every hallway was in the process of clearing out as quickly as possible. No matter how studious the general population of Curie High was or was not, the weekend was the weekend. No power in the universe could keep a high school student from two days of relative freedom.

It suddenly struck Asriel that ever since the concert the night before school started, he hadn’t actually spent as much time with Undyne as he normally did. Part of this was out of necessity. They had different classes, after all, as well as slightly different ideas about how free time should be spent. Undyne, for example, thought that boxing practice was a great way to spend a Friday evening, as evident by the heavy gloves she was in the process of pulling out of her locker when she saw Asriel.

She lifted her head in the universal teenage gesture for “‘Sup.”

Asriel smiled. No matter how much or how little time they got to spend together, they at least had a certain level of comfort that reasserted itself each time they saw each other. Asriel leaned against the locker next to Undyne’s. “Hey there. Uh. Look, I know we haven’t gotten to really hang out much lately.”

Undyne waved a hand to him. “Nah. Look. It’s your first year here. You should make more friends.” she said. “Can’t hang out with one person all the time. Especially since you only started to do it in the first place ‘cause your old man told you to.”

Asriel chuckled a little. It was true that Undyne wouldn’t have been his first choice as a companion before he got to know her. She had run with a bad crowd, after all, and gotten herself into a great deal of trouble. Asriel vividly remembered when she had been marched into his dad’s flower shop the morning after the window had been vandalized and half the display stock had been torn out of the pots. He had no idea whether Undyne had been the one to actually do it, and he suspected that his dad hadn’t known either. Regardless, part of her penance had been cleaning the shop up, a task she had completed with such enthusiasm that Asriel’s dad had offered to pay her to keep doing it.

The other part of the penance had involved a strong suggestion that she spend time hanging out with Asriel, ostensibly because he could be a good influence on her. Asriel had considered more than once that his dad actually intended they each rub off on the other in equal measure. He still wondered who got the better and worse end of that deal, though after the expected initial awkwardness of having next to no common interests, the pair had become quite comfortable with each other’s presence.

“Yeah, but I have missed you, you know.” he said. “I know we saw each other more last year, and we were at different schools then. Kinda feel bad.” he admitted.

Undyne grinned. “It’s because you care about schoolwork, and you’ve got more of it now. Plus, there’s Chara.” she said, then headed off his next apology before he could voice it. “Not that it’s a bad thing that Chara’s around. You’re a good kid, Az. I kinda think they need a good kid around. Worked for me, anyway.”

Asriel wondered about that. He suspected the situations weren’t very similar at all, even though Undyne and Chara could each be their own brands of volatile and impulsive.

Undyne’s uncovered eye narrowed and she beckoned him closer while scanning the hallway. “Hey. So, uh. Look. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something, though.” she said.  
  
Asriel blinked, feeling a little bit of his own discomfort at just how uncomfortable Undyne was acting at the moment. It wasn’t like her at all. “Yeah?” he asked, scanning the hallway himself just because it seemed like the thing to be doing right then.

Undyne rested a strong hand on his shoulder. “Uh. I think you should know. I’ve seen Brian around school.”

Asriel froze. He almost collapsed, right then and there, and it was only the presence of Undyne’s steady grip that stopped it from happening. His entire face was a weird, tingling sort of numb and his stomach felt like he swallowed a hedgehog. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t even remember what breathing was until Undyne started to shake him. “Hey. Az. Focus. Right here.” she snapped the fingers of her other hand in front of his face to punctuate that statement, and that, at least, jolted him from ‘freeze’ into ‘flight’.  
  
“I’ve got to get out of here.” he said, and started to squirm and reach his hands up to grab Undyne’s wrist and free his shoulder from her grasp. Asriel was bigger than Undyne by at least half, but Undyne was made of cold, blue steel reinforced by several years of boxing conditioning. She applied just enough pressure to keep him rooted in place, but not enough to actually cause him pain. If he were thinking straight, he would have admired that control.

“No, Az, you don’t.” she said. “Because here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re going to live your life like normal, and if I hear that he’s gotten within five feet of you, I’m going to feed him his own spaghetti and meatballs.”

Asriel blinked, his eyes focusing directly on Undyne’s one good eye. “What?” he said, trying to make sure he heard her correctly.

“What I mean is, I’ll rip off his testicles and shove them down his throat.” she elaborated, even though that wasn’t necessarily the part that Asriel needed clarification on.

He shook his head violently then. “No. No, Undyne, you can’t.”

Undyne’s scaled face contorted into an expression of pure, unfiltered fury. “The hell I can’t. He’s a problem, and he’s one I’m going to fix. ”

He looked her right in the eye and finally got control of his breathing, his voice, and his body enough to actually form the argument he needed to make to her. He tried to instill as much firmness into his expression as he had ever been capable of. He thought of his mother’s stern face when he had done something wrong, and when that didn’t quite work, he thought of Chara’s unflinching determination. “No, Undyne. I mean you _can’t_. Brian, he’s… he’s trouble you don’t want. He’s trouble you can’t handle by punching it. You know what happened to my mom last time. Undyne, she lost her _job_. And whatever agreement my dad worked out with the cops to get you off the hook, Brian will make it vanish like it never existed.”  
  
“I. Don’t. Care.” Undyne said, meeting his sternness with her fury.

“I. Do.” Asriel returned. He couldn’t back down. Not from this. He would not let another person lose something because of him. His mother at least could recover from that, no matter what it had cost the Dreemurr family in the end. Undyne’s future would be over, and it would be on him. He couldn’t let it happen. “Promise me, Undyne. Promise me you won’t start trouble. Promise me if anything happens, you just walk away. I need to know you’ll do that. If I’ve ever asked you for a favor, for anything at all, it’s this. Because you can’t help me from jail, Undyne.”

Something in his expression or his words or the way he was pushing her so hard on this got through to her. Her grip on him loosened even if she didn’t remove her hand entirely, and the rage drained from her face only to be replaced with a kind of sullen dejection. “Yeah. I hear you, Az.” she said. She knew what was at stake just as much as he did. She was big, she was tough, and she was a monster. In any situation that involved violence, she would always be seen as the aggressor, and that was even before considering the layers of protection that Brian’s money and status offered him. “Just. I’ll keep an eye out for any trouble.”

Asriel was too shaken to even laugh at that.  
  
“You see, because I have-”  
  
“Yeah, I know. I’ll laugh later. I’ll find you absolutely hilarious. I’ll text you when I do.” he said.

Undyne winked, which looked exactly like a blink. “You better.” She quickly tied the strings of her boxing gloves together and draped them over her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll walk out to the parking lot with you.

  
Asriel nodded, grateful that no matter how inattentive of a friend he had been himself, there was at least one person who wouldn’t give up on him.

_~~~Chara~~~_

“So let me make sure I have this absolutely clear, child.” Toriel said, her face setting into a stern vision of justified wrath that Chara was becoming increasingly certain could actually melt the skin off of their bones. “Not only did you forge your academic records and a guardian’s signature in order to get in here.”

“A pretty great achievement-” they started, before Toriel cut them off.

“Silence, child. You are only to answer me with ‘yes, ma’am’, or ‘no, ma’am’, unless I ask for clarification.”

“Uh.” Chara quickly decided that they did not, after all, want a skin transplant, either metaphorical or actual. “Yes, ma’am.” they said, lowering their head to what they had long ago determined was the appropriate level for receiving direct chastisement.

Toriel let the silence extend for a brief second while the stunned administrative assistant on the other side of the desk watched what she quickly realized was a master at her work. Then, Toriel continued. “Not only did you do those things, but you also registered without a last name.”

Chara nodded. “Er. Yes, ma’am.”

Toriel seemed satisfied with the nature of Chara’s answer, if not the actual confirmation. “And furthermore, you registered as a _monster_.”

Chara sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” They rested their hands, one on top of the other, in their lap, the perfect picture of a penitent confessing their sins before evening services.

Toriel frowned. “A monster named ‘Charade the Human’.” she concluded. “Care to give an explanation as to why, exactly, you got it into your head to do that, child? This is the part where you use all of that eloquence that I _know_ you have in there and convince me you have a good reason.”

Chara took a moment to think about all the possible implications of their quickly-shortening lifespan and said, “Because it’s way the hell more accurate than any actual last name I could have put down?” After another moment of additional consideration, they added, “Ma’am.”

Toriel turned her attention to the administrative assistant, a short, slender, bespectacled mouse with a name plaque on her desk that proclaimed in solid, block letters, ‘Mz. Squeakamere. The mouse tried her best not to actually shrink from Toriel’s gaze, though she did let out an involuntary chittering noise when Toriel said, “...And you didn’t catch this?”

The mouse looked from Toriel to the stack of paperwork she still had to go through. Then she looked at Chara. Then back at Toriel. Then back at Chara again.

Chara shrugged. “I’m self-identifying.” they said.

Toriel frowned. “You’re being _disrespectful_ , child. Now fill out some actual human paperwork, and I will lend it my actual authentic signature if it meets my approval. And Mz. Squeakamere?” she said, turning back to the mouse.  
  
“Uh. Yes?” she replied, fiddling with a pencil and looking for all the world like she wanted to nibble on it out of nervous habit.

“While I do not, as a rule, pass things off as ‘just pranks’, given the abnormal circumstances of Charade’s entry into my household, I think it would be best if their original paperwork somehow found its way into the shredder. Unless you believe that the school can invoke a punishment for them any harsher than one that I could think up?”

Mz. Squeakamere looked over at Chara in answer. “For your sake, I hope you believe in an afterlife. Mrs- I mean, Ms. Dreemurr is a legend around here.” she said.

Toriel let the brief mistake slide, grabbed one of the human registration forms, and handed it to Chara. “No more funny business.” she said.

Chara sighed, grabbed a pen, and started scanning the form. In all the sections regarding academic records, they scribbled ‘N/A’. Even though they figured this would get them immediately kicked out, that blow would be cushioned by actually having a real place to stay now. It was amazing how much anxiety that fact removed. They were still getting used to it.

On the line labeled ‘address of residence’, they put down Ree and Tori’s address, which they had memorized. Under ‘previous addresses’, they scribbled ‘1997 Toyota Corolla’. Mz. Squeaksmere looked at the line, then at Toriel, who nodded. “That is, unfortunately, accurate.”

Then, they started filling out the personal information. There were some lines they had to leave blank for reasons very much related to the ‘previous addresses’ line, though to their credit they didn’t fill those in with anything fake, either. Then they went back to the line that had gotten them stuck on this form in the first place.

‘Name’.

They wrote ‘Charade’ in the box for ‘first name’.

That left one other non-optional box. They stared at the box labeled ‘last name’ and they got the exact same feeling as they had during art class when they had no idea what to do with a blank canvas. It was why they had gone through such great lengths to avoid putting anything in there at all. They did take a moment to consider that swapping the human form out for the monster one that did not have the same name requirements, figuring out what to put in the more official fields to make them look accurate, and then sneaking the form into the stack rather than handing it to anyone actually took more effort than it would have taken to just make up a name. Except that names were important to Chara. So important that putting in one that didn’t fit them was absolutely unthinkable.

“Uh.” they said, looking up at Toriel. “Hey, Tori, so like. What should I put here? Because when you think about it, it would be super cool to only have one name, like Cher. Or Madonna.”

“Child, you are neither Cher nor Madonna.” Toriel said, and then looked at the paper as well. Her face didn’t radiate anger anymore, so that was a plus in Chara’s book. She seemed to be really giving it proper consideration. “Well, for the sake of the form, you _are_ a member of the Dreemurr household now, so would it be okay to put that?”

Chara blinked. “What, really?”

Toriel smiled. “You don’t have to go by that or anything, but at the very least it will save you the trouble of thinking of something new every time you wish to feel more amusing than anyone else thinks you are.”

Chara chuckled. “Yeah. Okay. Like an artist’s reference. To know where to start from.” they said, as they filled the name into the box. ”I can get behind that.”

_~~~ Asriel ~~~_

Dinner that evening was not too elaborate, especially by the standards that Toriel usually adhered to. This was fine with Asriel, as it left him more time to focus on finishing up his homework and get started on the actual project he wanted to work on. Chara didn’t complain either, but they seemed to still be in the ‘if it’s food, it gets eaten’ mindset. Asriel hoped they were getting a little more used to having a consistent source of nutrition, but he believed Chara when they said it would take time. He wanted them to have that time.

He didn’t bring up his earlier conversation with Undyne. In fact, he tried to push it as far from his mind as he could. Not that it helped, since the best way to think about something was to try not to think about it. He doubted he would be sleeping anytime in the next few days. Either that, or he would sleep too much and barely be able to get out of bed. It could go one of those directions. That was just kind of how things worked out for him and his brain. The anxiety made homework even more of a chore than usual, but the knowledge that he had something else more important than his own problems to focus on slowly started to replace that anxiety with anticipation. When the last biology worksheet was finished, he slammed the book closed, stuffed it into his backpack, and practically bounced over to his closet.

He had over the past few years sort of tried to keep his closet organized into sections. First was clothing, which at this point mostly consisted of t-shirts, jeans, and a couple of button-up shirts for special occasions. Next was art supplies, which fought an increasingly triumphant battle against the clothing for closet space. Last, there were a couple of computer cases and a few bins of random parts and cables. He didn’t know as much about computers as some kids, but he had been able to put at least one together by himself so he knew more or less what to do. He gathered up one of the old cases, a gigantic CRT monitor, a keyboard and mouse, and some internal components that he was pretty sure still operated, and with all this in his arms, walked the short distance to Chara’s room and knocked on the door. “Hey, mind if I come in?”  
  
“Uh. It’s your house, dude.” they said from inside.

“That’s… not what I asked.” Asriel said. “I asked if I could come in. You can always tell me no.”

There was a brief silence, then the door opened. Asriel stepped into the room and saw Chara laying on the bed with their biology textbook in front of them, a pencil behind their ear, and a frustrated look on their face. “Ugh.” they said, slamming the book closed. “Why does everything have so many fucking _parts_?”

“Wait.” Asriel said. “How did you open the door?”  
  
They lifted one hand to show him what appeared to be a kite string. He traced the string down to the floor, where it looped through a small pulley that Chara had affixed to the door stopper and ended up tied around the handle.

Asriel just looked at the whole setup for a moment. “Okay, that’s actually really clever.” he said.

Chara blinked. “Uh. I guess so. It’s mostly just being lazy and me wasting time because I don’t understand the fucking homework assignment because biology sucks.” They grabbed their book and half-heartedly tossed it across the bed.

Asriel looked around the floor of Chara’s room and picked a spot that was covered in the least amount of stray clothing. He set down the computer parts and made a spot for himself beside them, but before he started digging through them in earnest, he looked up at Chara. “So what about it don’t you understand? I mean, I won’t let you copy my homework because that would be really obvious, but I can at least try and help, you know?”

Chara sighed. “I’m having trouble with...like, all of that.” They gestured at the book. “You know. Everything in there. I can’t concentrate on any of it, and there doesn’t seem to be a point to half of it. And then I keep thinking about stupid shit like…” They gestured to the pulley, then, emphatically, as if trying to convey all of their frustration in that one gesture. “Like the way muscles are described kind of reminded me of a pulley system. So I thought, hey, arms open doors, right? So why couldn’t I make a really long arm muscle and open the door without getting out of bed?” They sighed again, more deeply this time, with a frustrated little growl at the end of it. “See? Dumb shit.”

Asriel just sat there with his mouth open for a moment. “Uh, Chara? That’s actually really smart.”

“Okay now you’re just fucking with me.” Chara said, sullenly.

That sent a little pang of hurt through Asriel’s heart. Did Chara really still think he would just tell them something to make them feel better? Admittedly, he did want to tell them they were smart in order to improve their mood, but that was because he really thought it. He just wanted them to think as highly of themself as he thought of them. Once again he had to tell himself that it wasn’t about him or what he wanted, and that they must not have had much in the way of positive reinforcement in their life. And even if they had, it might not matter. Asriel could receive all the praise in the world, and he still focused on the one thing he did wrong in any situation. “Chara.” he said. “You took something out of a textbook and applied it to real life. That’s something that’s really hard to teach, or so Mom says.”

Chara snorted. “Ree, I just tied some strings and a wheel to a door stopper.” They nodded to the parts strewn about him on the floor. “You’re about to build a magic internet machine for me.”

Asriel chuckled. “Yeah, I’m going to help you set up a computer. Just know that I think you’re really smart, and after we get this set up I’ll see if I can explain the biology stuff in a way that will help it make sense, okay?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, biology. Now let’s make with the computer magic.” they said, wiggling their fingers in the universal gesture for ‘casting a spell or something’ toward the computer parts. Their struggles of only a few minutes ago seemed to be forgotten as the New Thing captured their attention. This was another thing Asriel had noticed about them. Their attention could flit back and forth between any number of things several times in the space of a minute or two, and this meant that their moods could do the same. If they were happy now, that was enough for the moment, he reasoned.

Asriel smiled, grabbing a pair of anti-static gloves and sliding them over his paws. “Okay, so here’s something practical I can tell you that you won’t find in many textbooks. When you’re touching something electric, you need to wear something like these because your body also has some electricity in it.”  
  
Chara laughed. “Why, Ree, are you saying I’m _shockingly handsome_?” they said, tucking a strand of red hair behind their ear. Asriel’s heart skipped a beat.

“Uh. I’m not _not_ saying that.” he said. “But I am saying you can ruin these parts by touching them without protection. And before you make a condom joke, it’s not quite like that. It’s even worse for monsters who have fur, because if fur gets into the parts it can cause electricity to go where it shouldn’t be. I can’t even blame human engineering for it because there actually were several monsters who designed parts of the first computers. It’s just the practical reality of handling electrical parts.”

Chara nodded. “Is that why shit just stops working sometimes?”  
  
Asriel laughed. “There are a lot of reasons for that, but yeah, that’s probably one of them. This is only the second time I’ve done this, though, but it’s actually gotten less complicated than it used to be. That’s what I heard from the people I got the parts from.”  
  
Chara watched with fascination as Asriel handled the motherboard, the memory, and all of the cables that hooked the fans and hard drives up. He could tell that the whole thing still mystified them a little, but he hoped they were learning something. It seemed to be a lot like art class earlier in the day. Chara might not want to paint or build a bunch of computers themself, but at the very least they enjoyed watching him do it.

Finally, he got to the point where he could plug it in and see whether everything he had done was correct. That was the most stressful part the first time he had done this, because it was a real ‘moment-of-truth’ experience. If he had messed up anything up to this point, he would push the power button and nothing at all would happen. Thankfully, this time, when he pressed the button, the fans whirred to life, a few lights blinked on the front of the computer case, and a white blinking cursor appeared on the CRT monitor.  
  
Chara watched it for a moment. Then another moment. Finally, they said, “That’s it?”

Asriel coughed. “Well, no, it doesn’t have an operating system on it so we’re only half done. This was just to test whether I plugged everything in right. And it seems like I did, so now I stick the disc in, let the system start installing, and we go talk about biology for a half hour or so.”

“Oh.” Chara said. “...Magic takes a lot of work, huh.”

Asriel grinned. “Yeah, but so does homework. And the, er, ‘magic internet box’ is going to do most of the work from here on, so let’s talk about what you’re having trouble with.” He put a disc into the computer’s CD drive, hit a few keys, and started to let the installers do their thing. Then, he took off the static gloves and walked over to Chara’s bed. “Mind if I sit?”

Chara nodded. “Yeah. And like. I mean it. You really don’t have to keep asking me for everything.”

Asriel nodded. “I know. But it’s an issue of respect, okay? Anyway, here, hand me the book.”

Chara handed him the book, with obvious confusion on their face about both his statement about respect and about wanting the book for himself when _they_ were the one who was supposed to be doing the work. “‘Kay, but I thought I wasn’t copying. Not that I’m complaining. I’ll totally rip off your answers. I have no shame.” they said, and Asriel knew they were only half-teasing.

Asriel managed to keep from sighing this time and opened the book. “So we’re talking about flowers, right?”  
  
Chara nodded. “Yeah. It’s just, the book is boring, all the shit runs together, the pictures are dumb, and I’ll be honest the only way I am ever going to be able to pay attention to this shit is if there were porn in it somewhere. And no, the diagrams in chapter six don’t count.”

Asriel laughed. “Yeah, well, even aside from that, it’s kind of hard to be turned on by diagrams of pistils and stamens, especially when there are bees involved.”

“Yes.” Chara replied. “Yes, you are absolutely correct.”

Asriel flipped a couple pages in the book. “I kind of have to pay attention to this stuff though. My dad runs a flower shop, and even aside from that he’s really knowledgeable about plants. He really likes it that I know how flowers get their different colors.”

Chara tilted their head slightly, their curiosity finally piqued. “Wait. How _do_ they get different colors? I figured it was just one of those things, you know? Like people’s eyes or hair.”

It occurred to Asriel that Chara was so very close to understanding a lot of things and that the issue was that they were just missing certain key pieces of information to make it all click. It was the difference between intelligence and knowledge, when it came down to it. “So,” he began. “You’re actually pretty close to the right answer here, because there is some relationship there. It’s not all random. It’s genes. So like, the thing with the flowers in the textbook. If you mix the pollen, the result can be either color. Uh. The details are something you might actually have to ask Mr. Gaster about, but what it comes down to is that there’s a method you can use to predict what the chances are of you getting either color.”

Chara frowned. “Yeah. That’s the part I don’t get. If it’s part random anyway, why isn’t it just an even chance?”

Asriel grinned. “Well, here’s something that makes it a little more relevant to you: red hair.” he gestured in their general direction, and then to his own face. “And my yellow eyes. They’re both recessive, which means that the genes can be there somewhere for generations and not show up. But then, like, both my mom and dad had the genes for yellow eyes, and that means there was a one in four chance I’d get them. And here I am.” he said. “And it’s the same with your hair, too.”

Chara’s eyes widened and they unconsciously reached a hand to touch at their own shoulder-length hair. “Whoa. No shit? That’s why?” they said. “It isn’t just straight-up even odds between whatever your parents look like?”

Asriel nodded. “Right. It’s all about how the genes mix with each other. And it’s why you don’t ever see kids that have both monster and human traits. The genes are too different, or something. I don’t know. That part doesn’t totally make sense, and that’s probably that, uh, chapter six material.” he said. “But for whatever reason, it just doesn’t work.”  
  
Chara’s face turned bright red and they suddenly became very interested in their own hands. “Oh. Uh. Okay. That’s good to know. For future reference. Because reasons.” they said, their voice trailing off to a murmur.

Asriel had to give a chuckle at their bit of discomfort. He knew it wasn’t exactly nice, and he really did try to hold it back. Honestly, though, they looked so cute when they blushed that the laugh came out before he could process that they were blushing for reasons he probably shouldn’t find amusing. “What, do you want kids someday, Chara?” he said, not even thinking about why _that_ wasn’t a great thing to ask either.

He immediately regretted that. Chara’s head shot up and there was a look of rage on their face that could only be described as incandescent, and they replied, “ _Hell_ no.” As fast as Asriel’s heart was beating, seeing that look almost had the effect of a high-voltage electric shock. He wondered how close he came to dying at that exact moment. But then, the expression was gone, and in its place was something that looked like… sadness? And then even that disappeared, replaced with something blank and empty before going through a kind of hard reset into a smile. “Uh. I mean. That is _so_ not where I was going with that.”

As scared as Asriel was at seeing their anger, the more powerful feeling there was a kind of weird disappointment. Family had always been important to him on some level even when he had become disillusioned with the concept, and deep down inside he had unconsciously held to the belief that family was something everyone aspired to. It made sense, though, that Chara didn’t feel the same. They had run away from something, after all, so he couldn’t expect them to place the same value as he did on the concept even on a theoretical level. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, okay. I mean. I guess I was just wondering about those things. Marriage. Family. All that stuff.”

It was the first time he had even thought about that since the inappropriate joke Chara had made the first night they met. To their credit, they hadn’t made any more slip-ups of that nature, and that told him that they really had no idea what they were talking about that first night. That was a good thing, in Asriel’s book. It meant they were involuntarily ignorant and not just an asshole, and that when corrected, they could put effort in. So, the fact that Asriel was bringing up that ‘m’ word now with them meant that he was starting to trust them with that conversation.

In response, Chara shook their head and looked down again. “No. It’s… look, Ree, here’s the thing. I talk a big game. I use humor when something’s discomforting. It’s why that was my go-to joke that first night. Because the whole concept makes me uncomfortable, so I turn it all into a big fucking joke that just ended up backfiring on me that time. I don’t _get_ to have marriage and family. Those aren’t things that are _for_ me.”

Asriel opened his mouth to protest, and Chara held up their hand. “No, just, hear me out.” they said. “That’s complicated enough and I don’t think I can really explain it yet. But I brought it up to say that as complicated of an issue as it is, the part about kids is _real_ simple. Kids are a hard no for me. Ever. And that has nothing to do with anyone else but me. Especially if this biology shit is right and there’s some part of me, any part, that would end up getting passed on.”

Even though some unconscious part of him deep down inside really wanted to protest this on some level due to his more traditional upbringing, he found after a moment of thought that he really couldn’t. “I guess the thing is, as a kid, I thought that family was supposed to be the end goal of things. You know? But then my parents split up.” he said with a sigh. “Now I’m not really sure I’d want to have kids anymore either.”

Chara nodded. “See? It’s complicated for you, too. And anyway, we’re both kids ourselves, right? What the fuck are we doing talking about this shit. It doesn’t matter to us yet. It shouldn’t, anyway.”

Asriel blinked. They were right, and he knew it. He had fallen into the trap of thinking too hard about a future he wasn’t even sure he wanted, rather than in the here and now. It was like the conversation they had after the first day of school when they were both talking about some theoretical relationship that neither of them would probably ever have with anyone. Love wasn’t a thing he got to have, so why think about anything that came after? “Yeah, you’re right.” he said, forcing a smile. “Hey, the computer’s done with the installation. Let’s go set it up, okay?”

_~~~_

“Okay, can I use it now?” Chara asked with a long-suffering sigh. Asriel realized that they had never really done this sort of thing before, and looking at it from that point of view it really did seem like a lot of effort to do all the security updates and install the various programs required for a bare minimum of functionality from the ‘magic internet machine’.

Asriel grinned. “Yeah, now that the antivirus is finished doing its thing. And remember, uh, ‘private mode’ just means that nothing is saved onto your computer. It doesn’t mean nobody can see what you do. And just don’t turn off the antivirus because you’re prevented from downloading some things for a very good reason.”  
  
Chara laughed. “Computer condom. Got it.”

Asriel stammered, “Y-yeah. So like, it protects you from things you can get-”

“...from going to porn sites?” Chara finished. “The analogy still holds, you know. Anyway. Even if I’ve never _had_ a computer, I’ve still been _around_ them. And I’ve picked up on internet shit a little,” they said with a grin. “Just by being around people. But yeah. I’ll be careful.”

Asriel nodded. “Well, good, because I don’t want you getting in trouble with mom.”

“To be clear,” they added, “I’m going to be figuring out _how_ to look for porn the second you leave this room.”

“Uh.” Asriel said. “Just… look. If you’re going to do it, at least let me show you how not to get caught.”

Chara chuckled. “Why _Ree_! You _are_ a healthy teenage boy! I was starting to wonder!” They nudged him with an elbow. “Everyone’s gotta get some action from somewhere. That’s just how people work. So like. Don’t try to pretend like you don’t get turned on. ‘Kay? Talking about sex doesn’t mean we’re gonna end up tangled in the bedsheets, or whatever mental image you wanna substitute.” they said.

That certainly _did_ produce a mental image that had an immediate effect on Asriel’s heart rate. Right on the heels of that, however, was a wave of anxiety, dread, and revulsion. It wasn’t directed at Chara so much as it was focused solely inward. “Oh. Yeah.” he said. “That’s fair.” Of course Chara didn’t want to sleep with him. Even though they _had_ come onto him that first night. It was something he really hadn’t thought about since then and was trying his damndest not to think about now.

Chara just looked at him. “Ree. You told me you didn’t want me doing that stuff anymore. So I’m not. And this is how a person _deals_ with that. It’s not wrong. It’s not bad. And even if we have to keep it a secret from anyone else, I think we’re kinda past the point of keeping it from each other.”

Asriel looked down. “Uh. Sure. Yeah. Can we talk about something else? Please?” he said. “Kinda not used to this conversation.” This was true for a number of reasons that he desperately wished he could articulate to Chara. He tried to push all of that down, though. He could work himself up to talking about this sort of thing with them later.  
  
Thankfully, Chara nodded. “Yeah, I get it.” they said. Then, they turned the computer chair around so that they could sit on it backwards, cross their arms on the backrest, and use their arms as a headrest as they looked at him. “Hey, Ree? Tell me some more of the things you liked as a kid. I mean, there was the thing you were drawing earlier. _Everlasting Story_ , or, you know. But what else?”

“ _Neverending Story_ ,” he replied. After he corrected Chara, he looked at their face for a few moments, trying to see some kind of crack in their facade to indicate the incoming joke at his expense. However, what he saw was an honest curiosity. He knew by now that they could put on a very convincing mask, and he wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking he could tell every time they were acting. What he had learned, though, was that there was this particular wide-eyed expression they got when they were really, truly interested in what he had to say. It was the expression they were wearing right then.

This surprised him for some reason, and he hoped that it didn’t show too much on his face. He hadn’t really expected Chara to want to know about the things he liked, mostly because not a lot of other people had. Given that he thought that Chara was always cooler than he could ever dream of being, he was extremely self-conscious about his interests. Too many people made fun of him already over them in the past, and even Undyne tended to zone out when he started to get too nerdy on her.

He took a breath. “Well, I always liked playing video games,” he said. “ _Mario_ , _Zelda_ , those kinds of things. But there was this one series. _Final Fantasy_. It was different because it was like a book that you played through. I guess it made me feel smart because rather than depend on having good reflexes, the game made you think about what to do next and plan your moves out ahead of time.” He smiled sadly. “Back when I had a lot of friends as a kid, they’d come watch me play through those games.”

Chara’s smile widened a little. “Hey, I think I’ve actually heard of that one. Big swords, spiky hair, that kinda thing?”

Asriel nodded. “You’re thinking about _Final Fantasy 7_. It’s the one everyone knows. But the ones before that were my favorites. And here comes the part where you ask the obvious question.” he said with a chuckle.

“What, you mean how it’s pretty weird to have seven of a ‘final’ thing?” they said, grabbing the low hanging fruit and yanking on it for all it was worth.

Asriel nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one. I mean there’s this urban legend where the first one was going to be the company’s last game if it didn’t sell very well. Honestly, I think they just picked the name because it sounded cool.”

Chara laughed. “The rule of cool, eh?” They lay their head back down on their forearms. “Thing is, I hear all about these things just from people talking about them, but I’ve never actually. You know. Experienced them. I just kinda nod and pretend like I know what people are talking about, and pick things up as I go.” They sighed. “Kinda sucks having a childhood where I could never do anything that everyone else my age has done.”

Asriel felt his face light up in a smile, then. “No, Chara, this is actually great! If you’re really going into this blind, it’s like… I mean, you’ll be just like I was back then, playing them for the very first time! Except that you have the benefit of not having to play all the bad games to find the good ones! I’m actually really envious of you right now!”

Chara snorted. “Okay, remember earlier when I said you were just fucking with me? Well _now_ you’re _really_ just fucking with me.”

Asriel replied, “I’m not, honest. It’s like, seeing you feel the same things I did back then will be almost as good as being able to go through it the first time again _myself_. It’s something we can do together, too!” He looked in the general direction of his room, picturing his shelf with his games on it. He had them meticulously organized so he could find anything he was looking for with very little effort. “The only hard part is deciding what you should start with.”  
  
“Uh.” Chara said. “Wouldn’t I start at the beginning?”

Asriel shook his head. “Nah, it doesn’t work like that. The first game’s the hardest and doesn’t actually have much of a story. Every game has its own plot and world, and they don’t tie together at all. So it doesn’t matter which one you start with, except that some are better than others.” he scrunched up his face. “It’s hard! I guess it’s whether you like more modern science fiction settings or high fantasy. Uh, _Final Fantasy 6_ is generally regarded as one of the best ones. The story’s emotional, the characters have varied backgrounds, and it still has this really weird sense of humor about it. Plus you can suplex a murder train.”

Chara blinked. “I’m sorry, did you just say-”

Asriel smirked. “See? Got your interest already, didn’t I. Though I want to expose you to a lot more stuff too. Those games can be a little slow to get started, and I think you might like something more action-y.” he said, remembering their frustration with sitting still for any length of time. He wanted them to appreciate the plot, but they couldn’t do that if they were bored.

Chara studied him for a moment. “I want to see what you like in them.” they said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Why?” he asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate that you don’t think I’m dumb for liking this stuff. I just don’t want to ramble on about it and end up, I dunno. Just…” he trailed off. “You can tell me to stop any time.”

Chara leaned forward in the chair a little. “Tell you to stop? Ree, all of these things are what make you... _you_ , right?” they said. “So, I want to know them. It’s like what you were saying earlier in art class. Every artist has to have a reference, right?”

“Yeah?” he said, trying to figure out where they were going with the conversation.

“Well, you’re my reference.” they said. “So tell me. Show me. Because all the things I learn about you, everything you like, everything that’s made up this entire experience of _you_ , those are the brush strokes that add to the reference. I want to see the whole picture of you, Ree. Every color. Every shadow. Every imperfection and erased line.”

As Asriel’s heart started to race, they leaned in a little closer and said in a voice that was nearly breathless with the amount of passion and honesty they were displaying right then, “I want to see the entire shape of your life and know that somewhere in it, there is still a place for me to be painted in.”

Asriel’s mouth hung open but no words came out. How could he respond to that? They weren’t lying, not then. They truly believed he was worth knowing. Or, at the very least, if it was a lie, it was one that had just enough truth in it to make it real.

Chara grinned. “Tell you what. Pick a game out we can play together. And then tell me how it felt for you when we get to your favorite parts. And I’ll tell you what I think and feel. We can do that for all the things I’ve missed. Movies. Television. Hell, I’ll even read a _book_ for you, Ree.” they said. “Not even bullshitting you. Cross my heart. Because I know if any book helped you become the person you are now, it can’t have been boring.”

He was finally able to string enough words together to make a proper reply. “With most of those things it was just that they made me feel like I could be a hero. Like if only the right situation came along, I would be strong or clever or special enough when it mattered. That’s all it is, really. The thought that someday I could be the thief who saved the magical girl like in _Final Fantasy 6_ , or the goat monster who could defeat the dark locust plague like in the _Butterfly Catcher Chronicles_.”

Chara grinned. “You gave me a magic internet machine, you helped me slay the devil book given to me by the dark wizard Gaster, and for the time being anyway, you’ve saved me from the worst demon of all.”

“What demon is that?” he asked.

Chara met his golden eyes with their own red ones.

_“Me.”_

_~~~_

_And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one,_

_'Cause most of us are bitter over someone._

_Setting fire to our insides for fun,_

_To distract our hearts from ever missing them._

_~~~_


	5. Lifelike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter how well things are going for Chara, sometimes they have nights when things are not okay. Asriel has his own share of issues as well that have thus far only been alluded to. Can these two people find the comfort in each other that they desperately crave? And is that comfort what they actually need from each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, simply because we didn't want there to be too much going on. We wanted it to be more focused and more self-contained. There are conversations going on here that have needed to happen for awhile, even if these two are really bad at having these sorts of conversations.
> 
> Do they do and say everything exactly right? No, they don't. They're teenagers. But we wanted to show that they both care about each other deeply while also showing how much room they both have to grow.
> 
> Playlist suggestions:
> 
> Antarctigo Vespucci - Lifelike  
> Gregory and the Hawk - Boats & Birds  
> Sarah Donner - Beautiful Mess  
> The Amity Affliction - Don't Lean on Me  
> String Player Gamer - Fallen Down

_~~~_

_Will I ever be_

_The person they see in me?_

_I'm not there yet_

_Haven't even left yet_

~~~

FaceJournal profile on UnderNet:

Name: Charade

Age: Post-Apocalyptic

Location: Your Mom

Likes: Punk rock, RPGs apparently, and see above.

Dislikes: Stunfisk. Why is this even a pokemon?

First Status Update: “WHATUP BITCHES, I just figured out I can type whatever I want on here and people get to experience the joy of 24/7 Chara!”

~~~

@RadicalDreemurr: …There is a block button, you know. Also, your friends list only has two people on it and we listen to you all the time anyway.

@TwoFacedCharade: How do I get more friends?

@RadicalDreemurr: Are you seriously asking me that?

@StrongFish91: UH HAVE YOU TRIED

@StrongFish91: MAYBE

@StrongFish91: FOOD?

@StrongFish91: ALSO MAYBE NOT OPENING WITH ‘WHATUP BITCHES’.

@TwoFacedCharade: What if I just posted a bunch of cat pictures?

@RadicalDreemurr: That is actually the first non-terrible thing you’ve said on here.

@TwoFacedCharade: 33% Success Rate. Sweet!

@RadicalDreemurr: Sigh.

~~~Asriel~~~

If there was one rule among all the other things that Toriel enforced with absolute unflinching authority, it was bedtime. During the school week, this served the practical purpose of making sure that Asriel and Chara got enough sleep so that they would be able to focus in class the next day. This was more of a concern and adjustment for Chara, who didn’t seem to be able to focus no matter how much sleep they got, and who was also used to setting their own hours. The computer made things worse as Chara had started to discover such distracting pastimes as video games, streaming television, internet message boards, and, true to their claim, pornography. The walls of the Dreemurr residence weren’t thin or anything, but Asriel had still, with a certain amount of embarrassment, given Chara some headphones. Asriel maintained some concern that they weren’t getting enough sleep for different reasons than their previous ‘living in a Corolla’ thing. He did realize that there wasn’t a lot could do about it besides just try to be a good example for them.

He did discover that there was one particular perk to having his new best friend and constant companion only separated by one wall from his bedroom, though. When he was alone with his thoughts, he could knock softly on the wall and if Chara was awake he could receive an answer. In the beginning, the knocks didn’t have any real meaning attached to them, but after a few weeks they started to develop a sort of rudimentary language with each other. Neither of them knew Morse code, as that would have taken more effort than either of them wanted to put into the endeavor. Despite this, they did manage to figure out a few short phrases they could use to carry on some basic ‘conversations’ when they needed to. There were things like ‘are you there’ and ‘are you okay’, with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ being additional obvious requirements. There was also ‘can I come over’, for situations in which further conversation was necessary. Asriel and Chara valued each other’s personal space in similar ways, even if the reasons were different for each of them. They rarely denied each other the opportunity to spend time together, but it had become important to make sure there was explicit consent there.

On this particular night, Asriel lay awake on his back with his phone held up in front of his face. This was an increasingly common occurrence of late. His mind had developed a feedback loop that kept him awake even when his body was exhausted beyond the ability to get up and do anything that required energy or thought. There were many different things that fed into this loop but the result was a perfect storm of fear, hopelessness, and self-loathing that kept his brain in what felt like a box full of cold, miserable sludge. When he got into that state at two in the morning, the only thing he could really do about it was pull up _Grand Sky Odyssey_ on his phone. This occupied his mind just enough to not think about the things that were directly bothering him without being so intensive that it kept him awake.

He almost didn’t register the knock when he heard it. It took him a moment to mentally wade through the sludge toward the shores of conscious thought and match the knocks to one of the short phrases he and Chara used for their conversation.

_“Are you there?”_

Well, if he hadn’t been totally awake before, he was now. _“Yes.”_

A moment of silence followed in which Asriel almost sank back into the sludge. Then, _“Can I come over?”_

He debated saying no. He didn’t want Chara to see him as he currently was. He had been trying very hard to put on a positive face for them lately. They definitely had their own share of issues to deal with and they didn’t need to be affected by his personal brand of bullshit. However, they had never asked to come over in the middle of the night before. This in itself was a cue that something might be wrong. He put his phone down on the small table beside his bed and then knocked his reply against the wall, softly. _“Yes.”_

He couldn’t actually hear them getting up out of their bed, if they were even sleeping on it. He knew they had gotten better about the whole ‘needing to sleep on the floor’ thing, but he had no real way of knowing how much better. After a moment, they pushed his door open. They were wearing one of his t-shirts, a black one adorned with the logo of a popular anime series that Undyne had made him watch. The shirt came down almost to their knees and they were wearing green pajama pants underneath. In the light of the small hallway night light, their skin appeared even paler than normal, especially in contrast with the black t-shirt and their red hair and bloodshot eyes. Once they began taking shaky steps toward him, he realized this wasn’t a trick of the light. They really did look as pale as a ghost.

His concern must have been showing on his face because they offered an explanation even before he asked for one. “I had a bad dream,” they said.

Asriel didn’t bother with questions. He didn’t have to. While the statement itself was simple and almost childish, he knew exactly how real a dream could seem and what it was like to relive the past in nightmares over and over again. After all, wasn’t that why he hadn’t been sleeping well ever since Undyne had delivered the news that his past was catching up with him? Chara didn’t have to explain anything to him. He sat up and extended his arms toward them. “Chara, I’m here.”

They only looked at him for a moment before shuffling over to the bed and collapsing into his arms. They were so small, still, as if no amount of food or rest could ever make up for the deficiencies they had to endure while on their own. Their arms clung to him and they buried their face against his chest. They were shaking, and he remembered from the first night they met that this was how they got when they suffered a panic attack.

He tenderly wrapped his arms around them, lending them some degree of comfort while not applying any more force than was necessary. He wouldn’t restrain them if they needed to move or stand up or just not be held. Panic was tricky in that it triggered a person’s instinctive fight-or-flight response, and in a moment like that, restraint wasn’t helpful even if a friend’s presence was. He did provide a gentle rocking motion as they held him and he supported them. “It’s okay, Chara. I’m here. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you’re okay.” He didn’t know how he would do it, but there wasn’t any power in the universe that would stop him from trying.

When they spoke, their voice was raw, rough, and barely louder than a whisper. “Ree, I…I’m sorry. Your room is safer than mine right now.” They shuddered violently in his embrace and it was then he understood that they were crying. This caused a prickling sensation in his own chest as concern for them drove out the fear and hopelessness he felt for himself. He had seen a lot of other emotions from them, both genuine and replicated, but this was new. This was Chara unmasked, and realizing they had the same panic as he did deep down inside them made him feel intensely scared and more than a little powerless. If this wasn’t a problem he could fix in himself, what hope did he ever have in fixing _them_?

The fact remained, though, that they came to him in their pain and panic. He took the chance of making what he hoped was a soft, caring gesture and ran his paw through their red hair. “Oh, Chara…” he said, quietly. “You can talk to me about it if you want. Would that help? I’m here. I can listen. Even if I don’t know what to do, I can listen.”

Chara’s reply was carried by a shaky voice that sounded like they had swallowed a mouthful of gravel. “I don’t know that I really have the words to talk about it,” they said. They clenched their fists and gripped his shirt as they clung to him. “Dark and alone.” they finally said. “I can’t be in the dark. I can’t be alone. I guess those are the words. Dumb as they are.”

Asriel realized that his room was quite dark, and so he asked, gently, “Would you like me to turn the lamp on?” He wanted to make sure that they knew it was their choice and that he wasn’t trying to treat anything they were feeling right now as any kind of weakness. While he couldn’t be certain they were feeling the same things he felt when he panicked, he could at least guess.

After a couple of moments, he felt their head nodding while still pressing against his chest. “Yeah. Sorry.”

He reached over and pulled the cord on the small lamp. The resulting light filtered through the lampshade and gave the room a warm glow reminiscent of a summer sunset. “Please don’t apologize,” he said to them. “I’m here. I wasn’t asleep, you didn’t wake me up, and I’ll stay here with you as long as you need me to.” Even though the next day was a Saturday, it didn’t really matter to him whether there was school the next day or not. Chara was hurting. This was something he could do for them. Helping them made his problems seem less invasive, somehow. At the very least, it made him feel useful to someone.

“I think I’ll be fine as long as I’m not alone,” they said. “You’re really good to me. You’ve always been really good to me.” They were trying to get their breathing under control—forming complete sentences, no matter how repetitive they were, was an improvement over incoherence.

Asriel rested his chin on top of their head. It was an intimate gesture of sorts, one that he hoped they would be okay with. He wanted to comfort them, not make them feel like they were a bother to him in any way. At that moment, he wasn’t afraid they would take it as a sign to let that intimacy continue into things he wasn’t ready for. “Chara, I will be your light, okay? If the darkness is too much, let me try and be the thing you can hold on to.”

This just caused them to start crying again, the panic setting in as they took short, fast breaths through their sobbing. “You’re always telling me I should get more sleep,” they said, each couple of words broken by another sharp intake of breath, “And here I am, keeping you up, keeping you awake…”

Asriel shook his head. “No, Chara. Don’t start thinking like that. Don’t you dare.” he said. He tried to get his thoughts in order so that he could figure out the one thing to say or do that would snap them out of the spiral he knew they started going down. He couldn’t come up with those magical words of reassurance, so he did the only thing he could think of. He reached a hand down to take one of theirs and guide it up to one of his horns. “Here. Feel my horns. Feel _me_. I’m here for you. An anchor in the storm.”

Their hand closed around the horn. It wasn’t tight or anything like he kind of worried it would be, and to his surprise, the action really did start to calm them. “You… you let me…” they took a couple of deep breaths and finally found something resembling a solid speaking voice. “I know how much that means, coming from you. You told me, that first night, that it was… something I shouldn’t do. Without asking.”

Asriel shrugged. “That first night, I didn’t trust you. And it’s just… people tend to not think of things like that as ‘personal space’. But they are.”

“Oh.” Chara said. “When you put it that way, I get it. And it kinda makes me feel like a dick all over again.”

“No,” Asriel said, quickly, “That’s not why I said that. Sorry. I’m messing this whole thing up. I just. I want you to have something solid to hold on to, and seeing as how I’m big and squishy…”

Chara started to shake against him and he got the sinking feeling that he had said or done something that somehow made their panic attack worse. He knew how easily that could happen even if someone meant well. However, after a moment, he realized that they were laughing. They were still crying, so the end result sounded like a kind of weird hiccup. “You s-seriously just told me to,” they started to say, then suppressed another fit of laughter before finishing. “Told me to ‘grab life by the horns.’”

Even Asriel had to chuckle at that. “Uh. Whether I said that or not depends on whether it worked, I guess?”

Chara finally lifted their head from his chest and looked at him. Their red eyes were bloodshot and their skin was flushed, and when combined with their red hair the overall effect was not very flattering. And yet, this was Chara at their most real. They were the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Chara cleared their throat and took one of his paws in both shaking hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ree. I shouldn’t have to do this. I’ve always dealt with this shit on my own. I’m slipping, Ree. I’m falling down. I don’t know why I can’t catch myself this time.”

Asriel shook his head. “Chara, please don’t talk like that. There’s nothing wrong with asking me for help. I’m here.” He knew how hypocritical that would sound to them if they knew how many times he had kept something in because he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. It was different though. Nobody could solve his problems. He was beyond saving. But Chara? Chara had food and shelter and school, all because of _him_. He wasn’t about to let them think that they were burdening him in any way.

“I know,” Chara said. “I know that you’re here and that you’ll do everything you can for me. My point is that you don’t have to. You’ve never had to. I… I can do it on my own. Except tonight I couldn’t. But even that’s on me. If I’ve got an anchor tied to my feet in a deep ocean of my own bullshit, you don’t deserve for me to drag you into it with me.” They took a breath. “If I can’t swim, you shouldn’t have to swim for me.”

Asriel opened his mouth to protest again and Chara raised their hand and touched his lips. “Don’t bother, Ree. I know what you’re going to say. I know,” they said. They tapped at the side of their head with a fingertip. “And the things you’re going to say, I know them. In here. And I’m going to say this as gently as possible because you don’t deserve for me to wake you up just to snap at you.”

They pressed a palm to their chest. “No matter what you say, I won’t hear it. I can’t hear it. Because I don’t feel it in here.” They patted their chest a couple times to emphasize that statement. “Does that make sense, Ree?”

It made perfect sense to Asriel. He wished it didn’t, but it did. “You find it hard to believe that you deserve to be cared for. You feel that you’re such a bad person that anything I do and any trust I give you is wasted on you.”

Chara nodded. “Yeah.” they said. “That’s how it is.”

Asriel said, “If you’re looking for me to reassure you that everything is okay, I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what to say, Chara. All I can tell you is that you’re not bad and that everything I’ve done, I’ve done because I wanted to. Because you’re worth it. If I have to tell that to you over and over again until you do feel it in here,” he rested his paw over his own heart, “Then I will.”

Chara studied him for a moment. He noticed that they weren’t shaking anymore. They were fidgeting a little and their hands were clutching at the hem of the shirt they were wearing, but they weren’t shaking. “Hey, Ree? Can I stay here with you tonight? If I don’t,” they trailed off and looked down at their own hands. “Something bad might happen. Please don’t ask me what. Please. But I need to stay here with you. If that’s okay.”

Asriel nodded and rested a paw atop their hands. “Of course. You can even share my bed if you want.” This was an actual offer on Asriel’s part because he didn’t think that in this particular moment Chara would try to push for something he wasn’t offering. It was also a test to see how Chara was feeling. If they were in anything at all resembling their usual state of mind, they would jump all over that opening for innuendo like a kitten at feeding time.

Chara just looked at his paw and said, “Thanks.”

Just like that, the concern was back. Chara might not be shaking, but they weren’t okay. He didn’t know what to do other than exactly what they’d asked of him. There had to be more, though. There was so much they weren’t saying. Should he push? Should he not push? He didn’t know. “Hey. Chara? You can talk to me about anything, okay?” He knew he kept saying that, but since he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he hoped that repetition would bring understanding.

They nodded. “Yeah. I know. I can’t, though. Not tonight. Not in the dark. So please, don’t make me. Please. Just know that this is how I get. If I can sleep, then I’ll be better. Then we can talk. I promise, okay?”  
  
Asriel nodded. He wanted to tell them that he knew exactly what they were going through. He desperately wanted to tell them that his own depression gripped his heart and his mind so hard that there were nights he didn’t get any sleep at all. He wanted them to know that during those times, every smile he put on was fake. Above all else, he wanted them to know that he, too, was terrible. He was the empty shell of a good kid that had been shoved into a kiln and hardened while everything else inside was melted down and scorched out.

He didn’t say any of those things. He couldn’t. Not when Chara was the one having a sleepless night. What were his problems compared to theirs? So, he pushed all that down and said, “Okay, Chara. I’ll hold you to that in the morning.”

He disengaged himself from Chara briefly so that he could move the pillows around and make space for them. He wanted to give them as much room as possible, as the bed was only made with one person in mind and he was not a small person by any definition of the word. When he laid down, however, they moved right next to him and rested their head against his chest just like they had when he was sitting up. Due to their size difference, the two of them naturally settled into a position where Chara’s head was resting in the crook of his neck and his chin was resting atop their head again.

“Do you need me to leave the light on, Chara?” he asked. “I’ll be okay either way, so don’t worry if the answer’s yes.”

Chara seemed to really consider that for a moment, and then shook their head. “No. You’re here. That means you can be my light in the darkness.”

He hoped they couldn’t feel how fast his heart was beating in response to their words and the feeling of their body against his. He _really_ hoped that there wouldn’t be any other more obvious physical responses to their proximity during the night. Not only would he be incredibly embarrassed, but he also didn’t want something like that to ruin any comfort he was trying to give them and undercut his attempts to get them to stop thinking about sex as much as they did. On the heels of that thought was yet another internal chastisement for thinking too much about himself when he needed to be concerned about Chara instead.

He noticed that Chara was actually being still for once. They weren’t shaking, which was a definite improvement over a few minutes ago, but they also weren’t fidgeting restlessly either. In fact, they seemed to be calmer than he had ever seen them. After a moment, they whispered to him in a voice slightly slurred with exhaustion and impending sleep, “Ree? Will you sing to me?”

Asriel’s heart beat a little faster in a way that had nothing to do with Chara’s proximity to him. He had been in theater when he was younger, which had given him at least a little bit of experience with singing. However, self-consciousness had made him stop, and if this were any other time Asriel would have said no. This wasn’t about him, though. It was about Chara’s comfort. Additionally, there was some small comfort in the thought that they were so tired and panicked that they wouldn’t remember any of his singing in the morning anyway. So, in a voice barely above a whisper, he started to sing one of the songs his mother used to sing to him.

_If you'll be my star_   
_I'll be your sky_   
_You can hide underneath me and come out at night_   
_When I turn jet black_   
_And you show off your light_   
_I live to let you shine_   
_I live to let you shine_

_But you can skyrocket away from me_   
_And never come back if you find another galaxy_   
_Far from here with more room to fly_   
_Just leave me your stardust to remember you by_

He felt their breathing settle into a steady rhythm as they drifted off to sleep. He lay awake for a time thinking about everything that had just happened. Chara thought they were an anchor dragging him down, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them that nothing they could ever do to him mattered. He was his own anchor, and the ocean he was sinking in was one of his own making. Meeting Chara had made him happier, for a time, but it was all transitory. He had never thought the feeling would last, and he was right.

And yet.

Chara had come to him that night and shown vulnerability that he hadn’t seen in them before. As much as it made him feel like garbage to think that they had actually been more honest than he had been that night, it was also an indication that the things he had been doing for them were, on some level, working.

Maybe he could be a model of the kind of behavior he wanted to see in them. He had, after all, lifted them up in very tangible ways. They had food, shelter, school, and someone to look after them now. If he had done that, he thought, it stood to reason that he could continue to do something about any other deficiency they had.

He smiled and let that confidence lift his heart from the mire and muck it had been stuck in that night.

He could _fix_ them. He knew it.

~~~Chara~~~

Chara slept.  
  
And then, Chara woke up.

The room was illuminated in the warm glow of an autumn Saturday morning. The level of light in the room was always the first thing Chara noticed when they woke up, because they never took it for granted that light would be there. They reflexively reached under the pillow for the folding knife they knew would be there.

It wasn’t.

This caused them to freeze up and a cold, hard knot of dread to form just below their chest. Their eyes snapped open and they looked around the room, realizing that it was not the one they had thought they had fallen asleep in. The panic over not having a knife within reach gave way to the larger panic of not immediately remembering how they had gotten from their room to this room. They squeezed their eyes shut for a moment and opened them again, but this did nothing to change their surroundings into the ones they were used to waking up to for the past few weeks. They would have even taken the interior of the Corolla over an unfamiliar bed, at this point. A cursory glance around the room provided them with enough recognizable details that they could place their location as ‘Asriel’s Room’.

_Oh. Fuck._

They looked to the side. Asriel was laying on his stomach, face buried in a pillow. It would have been absolutely adorable if Chara weren’t so mortified at the entire situation to begin with. In fact, it was still adorable, and they desperately hoped that whatever had happened the previous night, they hadn’t broken something important.

They hoped with all their heart they hadn’t broken him.

_Okay, Chara. Think. You’ve been in this situation before. A lot. You’re in someone’s bed, you don’t remember exactly how you got there, and you just need to get back to your own room and pretend like nothing happened._

Though, they didn’t know for sure that anything did happen. They could guess, though, based on past situations.

_I’m sorry, Ree. I tried to be good. I tried. I tried so hard._

They tried to shake the tiredness from their head. They realized, at least, that they were still clothed, even though they knew that meant practically nothing. They realized that Ree was still clothed as well, which possibly meant a little more. They didn’t dare to hope, though they pressed their palm to their forehead and just tried to process any information at all through the fog of pre-caffeination.

Ree started to stir.

_Oh. He’s a light sleeper. I guess that’s information I know now._

He turned to them and opened his golden eyes. Chara was momentarily lost in them, and they considered that his eyes and the sunlight that shone through the window were very similar in color.

_“You can be my light in the darkness.”_

That was a thing they remembered saying. This memory caused synapses to fire in their short term retention processes, such as they were. They remembered saying other things. They remembered the terror of the dark night and the extreme post-nightmare loneliness and emptiness that they had found absolutely unbearable. They remembered knocking on the wall, then coming over to Ree’s room.

“Mm. Morning, Chara.” Asriel’s voice was low, quiet, and it cracked a little from the dryness of his throat. It was the most wonderful thing they had ever woken up to.

“We didn’t sleep together.” Chara said, in reply.

_Oh my fucking god I’m such a fucking idiot._

“Huh?” Asriel replied, still sounding sleep-addled. “Of course we slept together.” He blinked and rubbed his eyes with his paws a couple of times, then froze as he seemed to remember that this was Chara he was talking to. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘slept together?’”

Chara blinked. “Uh. Sex. I’m talking about sex. We didn’t, er, do the sex.”

_Real eloquent, you fuckwit._

Asriel reacted with the exact combination of shock and horror that was both reassuring and a huge blow to Chara’s already dwindling self-esteem. “What? No! We slept together! I mean! Side-by-side! Not, you know, uh, I mean, we didn’t- augh, you know what I mean!”

Despite having just had their self-image as a walking sex magnet crushed like an ice sculpture beneath a sledgehammer, Chara was incredibly relieved by Asriel’s confirmation. They were certain they hadn’t intended to do anything with him. If their panic attack had made them block out an entire night of sexual escapades _again_ despite all their effort to _not_ let that happen, that was a real problem. And besides. They wanted to remember anything that happened with Asriel.

So, they let out a huge sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay. Whew. Um. Okay.” They took a couple of deep breaths and then focused on Asriel. That expression of shock on his face had melted and re-solidified into something that looked a whole lot like disappointment. Chara mentally replayed the last few seconds of conversation and in retrospect could pinpoint exactly what they said wrong. “Um. Well, okay, that’s maybe not the best reaction I could have to find out we didn’t bang, but, uh. God.” Chara took one more deep, steadying breath. “Hey, Ree? So you know I’ve been playing some of your RPG video games, right?”

He tilted his head a little in confusion and nodded. “Yeah? Uh, why?”

Chara sighed. “If I say ‘can we reload the last save point on this conversation,’ am I using that reference correctly?”

Asriel let out a tired chuckle. “Yeah. I guess? Sorry. Haven’t totally woken up yet. Not really thinking well. I just want to know that you’re feeling better, Chara.”

Chara looked down, thought about the question for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah. I think I am. In the sense that I woke up, didn’t remember exactly how I got here, and then assumed the worst about myself.”

Asriel shook his head. “You were out like a rock,” he said. “I was too, after awhile. I made sure you were okay, and that you were sleeping. Actually sleeping. Seeing that you were helped me sleep too.” He nodded toward the window. “And we slept all the way through the night. Both of us.”

Chara frowned, tucked a stray strand of hair behind their ear to get it out of their face, and said, “What did happen last night, Ree?” They were trying to piece it all together. They were surprised at how much they could remember once they started remembering anything, but they had to be sure reality lined up with what was in their head. “I remember having a nightmare, being scared out of my fucking mind, coming over here and…” they shook their head. “I had a panic attack. That’s what that was. I think. It’s what I’ve always called it anyway.”

Asriel shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s what it was, but you really looked bad when you came in here. I was worried.” he said. “But all I did was hold you until you fell asleep. You wanted to stay in my room because you said you couldn’t be alone, and so I didn’t let you be alone. I wanted you to be comfortable.”

Chara’s heart rate felt like it had returned to normal at this point. “Okay.” they said. “I remember all that. It’s just. Look. You’re going to think I’m insane. But something happens to me when I get like that. I feel scared and alone and empty, and I freak out. And before I met you, it usually ended up that I’d wake up in bed next to someone and not remember how I got there or what we did.”

Asriel nodded. “Chara, if we had sex, I’d remember. I’d tell you. Please trust me on that. But we didn’t.”

“Okay.” they said. “I believe you. I guess it’s adrenaline or something that makes me blank out like I did. Like in that one biology chapter. Fight, flight, or freeze, right? Or, I guess for me there’s like one more ‘F’ in there, apparently,” They reached out and took his paw. “Ree, you know all that fucking around I said I did? I haven’t done that since I met you. You told me you were worried about me doing that. So I haven’t. I _still_ haven’t.”

Asriel’s smile hit Chara like someone took that same sculpture-destroying sledgehammer, wrapped it in a beam of pure sunlight, and clobbered Chara in the face with it. “That’s wonderful, Chara!” he said. They didn’t really know how to process that he was proud of them for _not_ fucking someone so hard they couldn’t remember it, but, then, he had proven over and over again that he was different from nearly everyone else Chara had ever known. “I mean, you don’t need sex to be happy anyway, right? That’s what Sans keeps telling everyone, anyway.”

Chara snorted. “Jury’s still out on that one.” They squeezed his paw tightly. “Ree, you saw me last night. Me. You saw how I really get. And you… didn’t turn me away.”

“Chara?” Asriel said. “Why would I turn you away? Those things happen. That’s existence. You get scared, or sad, or just… hopeless. It happens to everyone, I think. Even me. Especially me. And now you’re probably going to tell me that I’m making it up or something.”

Chara took his paw in both hands and just looked right into his eyes and said, without hesitation or reservation, “I believe you.”

Asriel blinked. “You do? People look at me funny when I say things like that.”

Chara frowned. “Why wouldn’t I believe you? You’re saying that’s what happens.” Chara knew the feelings well enough that they weren’t going to dismiss Asriel’s experiences just because Asriel was the one having them. Of course, they were more inclined to believe him than most other people because everything he was saying lined up with how they experienced the world.

_It means he’s like me._

_Except it’s beaten him down harder._

Asriel sighed. “Look. I’m good at pretending nothing’s wrong. It might be hard to fake happiness, but at least I can fake ‘okay’-ness. I can just let every bad thing roll off me like it doesn’t bother me. Like water on glass.” he said. “Nobody ever questions it because I’m the good kid. I don’t act out, I don’t get into fights, I don’t do anything.”

Chara shrugged. “And I do. People expect it of me, so I do it, right? I’ve gotten _real_ good at being whatever anyone expects to see when they look at me. It’s what we do.” they said. “People like us. We’re actors. We pretend. We put on a pretty, happy face so no one looks too hard at us. Or, if not a happy face, whatever face will get us through the day.”

Asriel looked at Chara, his golden eyes seeming to bore through their chest as he sought some kind of answer for a deep question he had never quite gotten around to forming into words. “Chara?”

Their heart beat faster under that scrutiny. They said they weren’t going to lie to him. They said when they made a promise, they would keep it. All of those things were true, but there was so much about them that he didn’t even know to ask about. How long before he asked a question they couldn’t answer? Was this going to be that day? “Yes, Ree?”

_Don’t ask me what’s under the mask. You won’t like the answer._

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He pondered them for another moment, then said, “I won’t ask you about last night. We both have things we don’t want to talk about. When you do want or need to talk, I’m here. I promise.” he said.

Chara let out a breath. “Yeah. Okay.” they said. “And… I can’t promise I can make anything better for you. Hell. I probably make things worse for you. But for what it’s worth, what you’re going through is real. And if you need to talk to someone who gets it, I’m here too.”  
  
Asriel smiled a little at that, and while it wasn’t a happy smile, Chara could at least tell it was a real one. “That’s all I need, Chara. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. But it’s all I can ask of you. The fact that you _get_ me means that you’re a better friend than I’ve had in a really long time. Maybe ever.”

Chara squeezed his paw again. “We can’t fix each other, but we can at least not be alone anymore?”  
  
Asriel nodded. “Something like that. It makes the mask feel...normal.”

_Oh. He really is… just like me._

Chara just leaned over and wrapped their arms around his shoulders and lay against him, clinging to him with all their might. “No matter what is under your mask, I don’t care. I accept you.”

With their head buried against his neck, they felt his throat rumble as he made a noise that indicated quiet contentment. They didn’t expect him to say anything in return, of course. They just wanted him to know that if anyone understood how much effort it took to keep the mask up, it was them. On some level, they knew he understood, even if he wasn’t ready to open up about it any more than they had.

They were about to say something else when there was a knock on the door. “Child, I know you don’t want to sleep your entire Saturday away. Come downstairs and have some breakfast, okay?”

_Fuck._

Chara sat bolt upright and then looked to Asriel, eyes wide. They mouthed, ‘What do I do?’ to him. They didn’t know how Tori would react to finding out that they had spent all night in bed with her son, no matter how many questionable things didn’t happen there.

Asriel blinked, frowned in thought, then moved to the edge of the bed and got up. He gestured for them to stay seated and quiet. He went to the door, opened it, and walked into the hall, shutting it behind him. They could hear him talking to his mom and suspected he was being a little louder than usual for their benefit. “Yeah, you don’t really need to knock on Chara’s door. I heard them moving around in there a few minutes ago. I’ll be right down, okay? And I’ll make sure they’re up, too.”

Chara didn’t expect Tori to fall for that for one second, even though they heard both sets of footsteps on the stairs and figured that Tori was at least pretending to drop the issue. They let themself fall to the side and collapse against one of Ree’s pillows.

They were in his bed.

Alone.

Why was this strangely intimate?

They buried their head in the pillow and wrapped themself in his blankets and just let the _feel_ of him permeate every part of their being. The feeling was… warm. Calm. Comforting.

They wanted to be wrapped in this feeling forever.

They wanted to feel his body against their skin.

They wanted to...

_I’m so fucked up._

They shook their head and forced themself to get out of bed. There was one thing they could do, at least, that they had been wanting to do for quite some time. They walked over to his closet, reached in, and grabbed three of his shirts without looking at what they were.

_Score. This is like a week’s worth of good sleep right here._

Their cheeks reddened as they tiptoed back to their room to stash the shirts before going downstairs to join Ree and Tori for breakfast.

~~~

_I do my best to keep it all in frame_

_Wipe those tears from off my lifelike face_

_But I don't have it in me today_

_~~~_


End file.
